PROBLEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

OR 

PRINCIPLES    OF  EPISTEMOLOGY 
AND    METAPHYSICS 


?&&&• 


PROBLEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

OR 

PRINCIPLES  OF  EPISTEMOLOGY 
AND  METAPHYSICS 


JAMES  HERVEY   HYSLOP,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

For/nerly  Professor  of  Logic  and  Ethics, 
Columbia   University,  New  York 


OFTHI    r 

UNIVERSITY 

N*to  Yorfc 
THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  fc  CO.,  Ltd. 
I905 


MFFIT1 

h 


/h 


Copyright   1905 
By  JAMES  HERVEY  HYSLOP 


DEDICATED   TO   MY   FORMER   PUPILS, 

WHOSE   PROBLEMS   AND   PERPLEXITIES  WERE   THE  SOURCE   OF  THE   REFLECTIONS  THAT 

ARE  EMBODIED  IN  THIS  BOOK  ;    IT  MAY  BE  THAT  I  CAN  NO  LONGER  SHARE  IN  THE 

INTELLECTUAL  GIVE  AND  TAKE  OF  THE  CLASSROOM,  BUT  I    MAY   RETURN 

WITH   INTEREST  THE  THOUGHTS   THAT   HAVE  BEEN  THE  FRUIT  OF 

MANY   STRUGGLES  TO  MAKE  CLEAR  THE  RIDDLES  THAT  VEX 

THE  UNHAPPY    PATH    OF    MAN    WHEN   HE  SO   MUCH 

NEEDS   THE    IDEALS  WHICH    HE    CANNOT 

PROVE   BUT    ONLY   LIVE 


PREFACE. 


that,  in  this  work,  I  have  tried  to  reproduce  the  results  of  my  own 
reflections  on  philosophic  problems.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  it  is 
in  any  sense  a  pioneer  work,  because  it  is  quite  the  contrary.  If  I 
have  accomplished  anything  at  all  in  the  effort  it  is  the  result  of  con- 
tact with  the  great  historical  systems,  as  all  rational  philosophizing 
must  be  in  modern  times.  If  I  were  to  name  the  men  who  have  influ- 
enced my  thought  most,  according  to  my  own  judgment,  they  would 
be  Plato,  Aristotle  and  Epicurus  among  the  ancients,  and  Kant,  Hamil- 
ton and  Lotze  among  the  moderns.  Just  what  and  how  much  is  owing 
them  must  be  determined  by  the  reader.  None  of  the  debt,  however, 
is  systematic.  It  is  only  for  the  conception  of  philosophic  problems 
and  general  ideas  which  are  necessary  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
past  and  development  of  present  questions.  I  have  avoided  reference 
to  historical  systems  except  to  show  how  a  problem  originated  and 
have  endeavored  to  discuss  present  philosophic  issues  with  less  refer- 
ence to  their  evolution  than  to  their  functions  and  validity.  I  adopted 
this  policy  because  I  did  not  wish  to  implicate  myself  too  closely  with 
either  the  exposition  or  the  criticism  of  historical  views.  This  does 
not  make  what  I  have  said  new,  but  it  does  require  it  to  be  judged 
rather  on  its  merits  or  demerits  than  on  any  avowed  relation  to  tradi- 
tional systems. 

I  have  also  been  convinced  that  it  is  the  duty  of  philosophers  to 
discuss  their  problems  directly  and  not  merely  the  history  and  evolu- 
tion of  systems.  These  latter  questions  are  important  and  indispen- 
sable, but  they  are  not  the  only  proper  work  of  the  man  who  expects  to 
make  philosophy  do  its  designated  service  to  the  age.  Moreover  to  do 
this  service  it  must  discuss  the  time-old  problems,  whether  it  succeeds 
in  providing  a  positive  or  a  negative  message  for  mankind,  and  hence 
I  have  confined  myself  to  the  general  problems  that  are  as  old  as  Plato, 
trying,  however,  to  avail  myself  of  all  the  results  since  his  day  and  to 
bring  philosophic  reflection  back  to  that  point  of  view  which  repre- 
sents or  includes  the  physical  sciences  as  well  as  the  mental.  Idealism 
has  done  so  much  to  emphasize  introspective  and  anthropocentric 
methods  that,  since  Kant,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  induce  philosophers 
to  make  any  concessions  to  physical  science  and  its  results.    Philosophy, 


where  it  was  not  phenomenalism  in  disguise,  has  run  off  into  the  blue 
empyrean  of  transcendentalism  while  protesting  against  the  possibility 
of  it.  As  for  myself,  I  feel  convinced  that  it  must  seek  the  service  of 
physical  science  and  ever  revise  its  constructions  on  the  main  lines  of 
its  problems  as  the  progress  of  "  empirical "  knowledge  requires  it. 
On  this  account  I  have  not  arrived  at  any  dogmatic  conclusions  upon 
some  of  the  main  problems  of  reflection,  being  content  to  outline  the 
method  for  their  solution  and  to  show  how  far  we  have  proceeded 
toward  this,  while  I  indicate  my  sympathy  with  the  truth  on  both  sides 
of  disputed  matters. 

In  the  title  to  the  work  I  have  endeavored  to  avoid  the  suggestion 
that  I  have  dealt  with  all  the  problems  of  epistemology  and  meta- 
physics. I  have  purposely  omitted  many  subordinate  questions  like 
"personality,"  "unity  of  consciousness,"  "the  ego,"  etc.,  because  I 
did  not  regard  them  as  in  any  way  conditioning  the  conclusions  upon 
larger  questions.  I  have  selected  the  main  general  problems  in  the 
two  fields  and  given  them  a  connection  with  each  other  sufficient  to 
give  the  work  a  definite  unity,  but  not  to  make  any  part  of  the  system 
absolutely  dependent  upon  any  other.  The  unity  is  synthetic  and  not 
deductive,  while  I  do  not  pretend  to  exhaust  the  subjects  in  their 
minutiae. 

One  of  the  difficulties  which  I  have  always  felt  in  the  discussion  of 
philosophic  problems  is  the  equivocal  character  of  its  fundamental 
terms.  In  spite  of  the  most  careful  definition  many  of  them  will  give 
rise  to  misunderstanding.  To  reduce  this  liability  to  a  minimum  I 
have  adopted  the  device  of  putting  many  of  the  fundamental  terms  in 
quotation  marks  to  indicate  the  recognition  of  this  equivocal  nature. 
I  have  confined  this  policy  to  technical  terms  of  long  standing  use. 
This  practice  varies  somewhat  according  to  the  connection  and  chap- 
ter under  consideration.  In  some  connections  a  term  is  more  equivo- 
cal than  in  others.  This  I  have  tried  to  keep  in  view.  But  when  I 
have  used  a  technical  term  without  quotation  marks  it  is,  with  some 
exceptions,  in  the  sense  carefully  defined  and  in  none  other.  For  in- 
stance's exceptions,  the  terms  "perception"  and  "  cosmological " 
may  be  remarked.  Previous  to  Chapter  V.,  the  term  "perception" 
did  not  involve  any  technical  questions  and  its  equivocal  nature  is  not 
indicated.  When  referring  to  Kant's  use  of  the  term  "  cosmological " 
I  limit  it  to  the  conception  of  the  world  as  having  a  beginning  in  time, 
but  in  other  cases  I  intend  it  to  imply  a  world  of  interrelated  realities 
without  regard  to  the  question  of  their  beginning.  When  I  have  in- 
dicated the  equivocal  use  I  leave  to  the  reader  the  determination  of  the 


sense  in  which  it  must  be  used  to  make  the  proposition  true  or  intelligi- 
ble. When  I  have  placed  the  word  ontological  in  quotation  marks  I 
have  used  it  in  the  Kantian  sense  and  when  the  term  is  without  these 
marks  it  is  used  in  the  sense  defined  in  the  present  work.  By  this  policy 
of  directly  calling  attention  to  the  equivocal  import  of  fundamental  terms 
I  have  indicated  the  source  of  many,  if  not  all,  the  disputes  between 
the  various  schools  of  philosophy,  where  they  are  not  due  to  questions 
of  moral  temperament,  and  in  thus  recognizing  the  liability  to  mis- 
interpretation I  can  leave  to  the  student  the  discovery  of  much  that 
might  have  made  the  work  longer  and  most  uninteresting. 


ERRATA. 

Page  28  line  21  read  involve  for  involved. 

"  29  line  35  insert  semi-colon  after  words  "  theoretical  ethics." 

»*  34  line  9  for  utility,  not  truth  read  utility,  not  law. 

44  100  line  27  for  were  read  are. 

"  153  line  17  for  nature  meaning  and  implications  read  nature 

and  meaning  of  what  is. 

"  181  line  9  for  illicit ed  read  elicited. 

44  186  line  8  for  inductions  read  induction. 

44  188  line  37  for  I  think  read  think. 

44  188  line  32  for  /ea^  read  /co*. 

44  192  line  34  for  concensus  read  consensus. 

"  202  line  18  for  Me  read  Ma/  before  Cognition. 

"  232  line  11  for  of  read  or  after  re.?*?. 

44  234  line  6  for  aftticipatory  read  anticipation. 

44  250  line  37  for  -zcwe  read  was. 

44  256  line  1^  for  care  its  phenomena  read  its  phenomena  cannot. 

44  288  line  25  for  area7  read  are  before  inactive. 

44  303  line  4  for  #  aWs  mean  read  ?V  aWs  reo/  mean. 

"  338  line  39  for  privailing  read  prevailing. 

44  346  line  21  for  .yreoTf  read  shows. 

44  356  line  28  erase  the  word  not. 

44  357  line  12  for  is  read  are. 

44  364  line  36  for  gives  read  give. 

44  372  line  31  insert  comma  after  nothing. 

44  373  line  31  insert  comma  after  agency. 

44  414  line  36  erase  comma  after  word  /fy_/te. 

''  439  line  1  insert  0/"  between  area?  and  Me. 

44  451  line  38  insert  comma  after  harmony. 

44  458  line  35  erase  comma  after  consideration. 

44  502  line  39  for  which  read  what. 

44  526  line  21  insert  comma  after  change. 

44  547  line  4  for  /re  read  &. 

14  550  line  18  insert  comma  after  motion. 

44  555  line  20  for  allusions  read  illusions. 

44  5S5  line  7  for  binignities  read  benignities,  and  line  8  iar  fact 

read  fate. 

44  588  line  16  for  idealist  read  idealists. 

44  594  line  21  insert  reo  before  criticism. 

44  601  line  36  insert  a  before_/ac/. 

"  618  line  7  erase  /ree  before  rezere. 

"  618  in  German  quotation  for  t/roV  read  Erde. 

44  623  line  10  for  ez>er  read  never. 

44  624  line  34  for  realized  except  read  fully  realized. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Introduction. 

The  two  problems    in    human   thought,  "How"  and  "What,"   I.     Greek 

thought  first  cosmological  and  then  epistemological,  2.     Sophistic  movement  and 

its  relation  to  scepticism,  3.     Plato  and  his  relation  to  materialism,  4.     Stoic 

and  Epicurean  theory  of  knowledge,  7.     Greek  thought  and  its  relation  to  the 

supersensible,  8.     Christianity  and   its  relation  to  the  supersensible  and   the 

theory    of   knowledge,  9.     Dualism   of   Christian    and  mediaeval   thought,   10. 

Cartesian  philosophy  and  idealism,  11.     Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume,  and  their 

relation  to  scepticism,  12.     Leibnitz  and  Kant,  14.     Summary  of  analysis,  16. 

CHAPTER  II. 
General  Problems  of  Science  and  Philosophy. 
Relation  between  science  and  philosophy,  18.  Four  general  problems  of 
thought,  19.  Comte's  serial  classification  of  the  sciences,  22.  Spencer's  logical 
classification  of  the  sciences,  23.  Principles  of  classification  adopted  in  this 
work,  25.  Table  of  classification,  and  explanation,  27.  Objections  to  the  classi- 
fication, 30.  Explanation  of  the  metaphysical  sciences,  34.  Traditional  contro- 
versies and  practical  life,  40.  Relation  between  metaphysical  and  phenomeno- 
logical  sciences,  45.  Explanation  of  fundamental  conceptions  and  origin  of 
metaphysical  doctrines,  46.  Relation  of  monistic  and  pluralistic  theories  to  the 
notion  of  causality,  49.     Conceptions  of  causality,  51. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Analysis  of  the  Problem  of  Knowledge. 
Field  of  epistemology,  58.  Equivocation  of  the  term  "  Knowledge,"  58. 
Influence  of  Christian  controversies  on  the  conception  of  "  Knowledge,"  60. 
Summary  of  its  conceptions,  63.  Problem  of  "  What  "  and  "  How  "  we  know, 
64.  Equivocal  nature  of  question,  "How  do  we  know?  "65.  Limitations  of 
scholastic  thought,  68.  Equivocal  meaning  of  term  "  experience,"  69.  Theories 
of  knowledge  and  reality,  70.  Classification  of  theories  of  knowledge  and 
reality,  72.  Conception  of  idealism  and  realism,  74.  General  divisions  of  men- 
tal functions,  77.  Conception  of  "Mind  "  or  "  Soul,"  79.  Use  of  term  "  Phe- 
nomenon," 80.  An  implication  of  the  term  "  Knowledge,"  80.  Ambiguity  of 
terms  "  Real"  and  "  Reality,"  80. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Primary  Processes  and  Data  of  Knowledge. 
Distinction  between  "elementary"  and  "primary,"  84.     Definition  of  Sen- 
sation, 85.     Relation  of  conception  of   sensation  to  scepticism,  89.     Origin  of 


xn  TABLE    OF  CONTENTS. 

theories  of  perception,  90.  Difficulty  of  scepticism,  91.  Meaning  of  Mentation, 
93.  Relation  of  conception  of  Mentation  to  "Knowledge,"  95.  Nature  and 
function  of  Memory,  97.  Apprehension,  its  definition  and  function,  98.  Illus- 
trations and  limits  of  its  function,  100. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Conditions  of  Synthetic  Knowledge. 
Explanation  of  synthetic  knowledge,  107.  Divisions  and  explanation  of 
Concepts,  108.  Propositions,  no.  Apprehension  and  Synthesis,  in.  Kant's 
categories  and  their  functions,  1 12.  Formal  Logic  and  Knowledge,  1 13.  Kant's 
conception  of  knowledge,  115.  Relation  of  the  categories  to  the  meaning  of 
propositions,  117.  Function  of  "  universality,"  119.  Schopenhauer's  reduction 
of  the  categories,  122.  Classification  and  explanation  of  judgments,  123.  Classi- 
fication and  explanation  of  the  categories,  126.  Relation  of  the  categories  to 
knowledge,  129.  Perception,  132.  Conperception,  139.  Apperception,  143. 
Ratiocination,  146.  Generalization,  148.  Objections  and  explanations,  148. 
Difference  between  the  attainment  and  the  communication  of  knowledge,  157. 
Equivocal  nature  of  the  sceptical  question,  162. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Theories  of  Knowledge. 
Conception  of  Idealism  and  Realism,  168.     Types  of  the  two  theories  of  j 
knowledge,  170.     Relation  of  Idealism  to  Solipsism,  174.     Sceptical  function  of 
Idealism,  176. 
=i  CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Criteria  of  Truth. 
Nature  of  criteria  in  regard  to  knowledge  or  truth,  178.  Forms  of  criteria, 
178.  Historical  conception  of  Logic,  180.  Kant's  influence  on  the  conception 
of  Logic,  181.  The  conception  of  Logic  adopted,  184.  Nature  of  the  syllogism 
and  its  relation  to  conviction,  184.  The  importance  of  the  quantification  of 
terms,  186.  Function  of  reasoning,  190.  Summary  of  the  functions  of  Logic, 
191.  Immediate  consciousness,  192.  Apprehension  and  its  relation  to  knowl- 
edge, 193.  Cognition  and  its  function  in  knowledge,  197.  The  sceptic's  ques- 
tion "  How  do  we  know?  "  200.  Arguments  for  objectivity,  203.  Objections  to 
the  theory  of  cognition,  206.  Generalization,  210.  Mathematical  judgments, 
215.  Substantive  judgments,  215.  Relation  of  Definition  to  Generalization, 
217.  Extensive  judgments,  218.  Intensive  judgments,  219.  Essential  qualities, 
224.  Generalization  summarized,  228.  Scientific  Method,  230.  The  processes 
of  scientific  method,  238.  Acquisition,  239.  Explanation,  239.  Hypothesis, 
241.  Verification,  244.  Principles  of  scientific  method,  246.  Canon  of  Coin- 
cidence, 247.  Canon  of  Isolation,  248.  Relation  of  scientific  method  to  the 
problem  of  knowledge,  250.     Summary  of  results,  254. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Perception  of  Space  and  Objectivity. 
Nature  of  the  problem,  258.     Influence  of  Kant  upon  it,  260.     Origin  of  the 
controversy,  264.     Examination  of  Berkeley's  doctrine,  267.     Nature  of  Kant's 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS.  xm 

theory  of  space,  271.  Criticism  of  Kant's  theory,  273.  Kant's  relation  to 
Solipsism,  280.  Relation  of  space-perception  to  sensation,  282.  Conceptions 
of  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  influencing  Kant,  284.  Kant's  relation  to  epistemo- 
logical  and  ontological  realism,  293.  Kant  and  "  Dinge  an  sich,"  298.  Experi- 
mental facts  and  their  relation  to  the  problem,  309.  Review  of  Kant's  concep- 
tions, 322.     Conclusion,  332. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Metaphysical  Theories. 
Relation  of  time  and  space  problem  to  metaphysics,  334.  Hylology,  334. 
Relation  of  epistemological  to  metaphysical  theories,  335.  Definition  and  use 
of  the  term  Spiritualism,  336.  Relation  between  Idealism  and  Materialism,  337. 
Conception  of  "  phenomena,"  340.  Relation  between  Materialism  and  Spirit- 
ualism, 345.  Indifference  of  the  problem  to  terminology,  348.  Relation  be- 
tween aetiological  and  teleological  problems,  350.  Illustration  of  spiritualistic 
method  and  conception,  354.  Relation  of  Monism,  Dualism,  and  Pluralism  to 
the  problem,  357.     Explanatory  and  evidential  issues  in  metaphysics,  358. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Materialism. 
Meaning  and  types  of  Materialism,  361.  Early  Greek  Materialism,  362. 
Materialism  and  "  material "  causes,  364.  Relation  of  Greek  Materialism  to 
modern  conceptions,  365.  Ancient  materialistic  theory  of  the  "  soul,"  368. 
Epicurean  admission  of  free  agency,  370.  Materialistic  appeal  to  sensible  facts, 
370.  Strength  of  ancient  Materialism,  371.  Modern  improvement  of  the  atomic 
theory,  374.  Influences  extending  the  application  of  the  materialistic  theory,  376. 
Quantitative  and  qualitative  questions  in  the  atomic  theory,  377.  Relation  of  the 
doctrine  of  inertia  to  the  materialistic  theory,  379.  Historical  stages  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  modern  view,  384.  The  indestructibility  of  matter  and  its  im- 
port, 386.  The  persistence  of  force  in  Greek  thought,  390.  The  mechanical 
theory  of  Descartes,  390.  Development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  391.  Nature  of  the  theory  of  conservation  of  energy,  393.  Materialistic 
application  of  the  theory  to  consciousness,  396.  The  theory  of  parallelism,  398. 
Contradiction  in  the  materialistic  application  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  402. 
Abstract  and  supersensible  conception  of  matter,  404.     Summary,  406. 

CHAPTER  XL 
Spiritualism. 
Types  of  Spiritualism,  409.  Destructive  and  constructive  function  of  the 
theory,  410.  Definition  of  Spiritualism,  411.  Greek  and  Christian  conceptions, 
413.  Plato  and  Christian  thought,  415.  Elements  of  Platonic  philosophy,  417. 
Plato  and  the  Principle  of  Identity,  421.  Efficient  and  material  causes  in  Pla- 
tonic philosophy,  424.  Relation  of  material  causes  to  the  conception  of  the 
transient,  426.  The  "  one  "  and  the  "  many,"  427.  The  spatial  and  temporal 
universal,  429.  Tendencies  in  Plato,  430.  Conceptions  in  Plato  connecting 
him  with  Christianity,  432.     Plato's  relation  to  abnormal  mental  phenomena, 


xiv  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

434.  Origin  of  Christian  doctrine,  435.  Materialism  and  Christian  philosophy, 
437.  Influence  of  the  Ptolemaic  system,  438.  The  story  of  the  resurrection  and 
its  relation  to  previous  thought,  439.  Elements  of  Christian  philosophy,  441. 
Cosmological  conception  of  Christianity,  442.  Atomism  and  Christianity,  444. 
The  doctrine  of  Tertullian,  445.  Development  of  Cartesianism,  446.  Descartes 
and  idealism,  447.  Cartesianism  and  Scientific  Method,  448.  Causal  relation 
between  mind  and  matter,  451.  The  problem  of  parallelism,  452.  The  unity  of 
subject  and  complexity  of  attributes,  456.  Consciousness  and  motion,  459. 
The  conservation  of  energy  and  Spiritualism,  463.  Evidential  questions  in  Ma- 
terialism and  Spiritualism,  471.  The  problem  of  Spiritualism,  475.  Consis- 
tency of  Spiritualism  with  assumed  objections,  477.  Relation  of  free  causation 
to  Spiritualism,  478.  Theory  of  brain  functions,  481.  "  Proof  "  of  Materialism, 
482.  Relation  of  Spiritualism  to  the  abnormal,  487.  Kant  and  Swedenborg, 
490.  Kant  and  Mendelssohn,  494.  Materialism  and  idealism,  502.  Modifica- 
tion of  the  conception  of  matter,  506.     Summary,  508. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
The  Existence  of  God. 
Influence  affecting  the  conception  of  God,  513.  Modern  modifications  and 
tendencies,  514.  The  Kantian  antinomies,  517.  Kant  and  the  "  ontological " 
argument,  522.  The  synthetic  nature  of  the  argument,  523.  Kantian  perplexi- 
ties, 524.  Demarcation  of  the  problem,  527.  Unity  of  "first  cause"  and  "  mat- 
ter," 530.  The  cosmological  conception  and  its  place,  531.  Relation  of  the 
doctrine  of  inertia  to  the  problem,  533.  Non-phenomenal  nature  of  causality, 
535.  Limitations  of  "  empirical  "  causality,  536  Threefold  nature  of  the  argu- 
ment, 538.  Elasticity  of  the  conception  of  "matter,"  540.  Motives  affecting 
Greek  and  Christian  ideas,  543.  The  serological  argument,  553.  The  conser- 
vation of  energy,  555.  Analogy  from  psychology,  558.  The  teleological  argu- 
ment, 560  The  mechanical  conception  of  "  nature"  and  the  idea  of  God,  561. 
Relation  of  the  problem  to  human  art,  563.  Relation  of  "  nature"  to  man,  565. 
Priority  of  problems,  570.     Conclusion,  572. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Conclusion. 

General  observations,  575.     Idealism  and  realism,  576.     Ethical  relation  of 

the  two  theories,  579.     Social  function  of  philosophy,  581.     Ethical  and  episte- 

mological  idealism,  584.     Function  of  idealism,  585.     Philosophy  and  science, 

587.     Materialism  and  spiritualism,  588.     The  belief  in  a  future  life,  590.     Diffi- 

,-f^— cultv  of  the  Kantian  argument  for  a  future  life,  594.     Modification  of  the  moral 

- — ^/argument,  596.     General  importance  of  the  belief,  597.     The  conception  of  God, 

/      599.     Science  and  the  "  proof  ^of-the'exlstence  of  God,  602.     Pantheism  and 

Spinoza,  605.     Science  and  religion,  607.     The  conservatism  of  religion,  608. 

,    The  function  of  scepticism,  609.     Ethical  spirit  of  science,  611.     Dehumanizing 

jk    influences  in  science,  621.     Reconciliation  of  religion  and  science,  623.     Reason 

and  faith,  628.     The  work  of  philosophy,  633. 


or  the   r 
VNJVER8ITY 


CHAPTER   I. 
INTRODUCTION. 

Historical  discussions  often  afford  us  the  best  method  of  analysis 
which  we  can  adopt,  as  they  represent  conceptions  understood  and 
agreed  upon  sufficiently  to  make  definition  less  necessary  or  explicit. 
This  fact  will  explain  why  a  few  observations  on  some  of  the  main  in- 
tellectual movements  in  philosophy  are  here  indulged  as  preliminary 
to  the  direct  discussion  of  the  fundamental  problems  of  epistemology 
and  metaphysics.  I  shall  discuss  them  rather  as  "  moments"  or  mo- 
tives in  the  development  of  thought  than  as  systems.  It  is  simply  cer- 
tain elementary  questions  which  I  wish  to  discuss  that  are  not  always 
considered  in  the  theories  of  "knowledge"  and  "reality."  They  may 
not  require  any  consideration  of  systems  at  large,  but  only  certain 
moods  and  assumptions  lying  at  their  basis.  An  exhaustive  treatise 
would,  of  course,  involve  a  complete  history  of  philosophy  as  it  turns 
about  the  conceptions  to  be  discussed,  but  I  do  not  regard  this  as  either 
necessary  or  prudent  in  any  attempt  to  elucidate  some  of  the  funda- 
mental ideas  on  which  epistemology  and  metaphysics  live. 

The  two  fundamental  ideas  out  of  which  these  sciences  grow  and 
which  also  distinguish  them  are  how  we  know  and  what  we  know, 
with  also  considerable  dubiety  and  discussion  regarding  what  is  meant 
by  "  knowing"  apart  from  both  the  process  and  object  of  it.  While  it  is 
difficult,  if  not  impossible  ultimately,  to  separate  "  how  "  from  "what  " 
we  know,  owing  to  both  the  nature  of  the  facts  and  to  the  nature  of 
the  intellectual  interests  involved,  yet  there  are  certain  exigencies 
which  require  us  to  abstract  them  in  certain  definite  problems  for  the 
sake  of  establishing  a  basis  for  further  discussion  of  the  questions  at 
issue.  This  is  apparent  in  the  whole  history  of  human  thought  which 
has  been  as  much  interested  in  producing  conviction  in  others  as  in 
reaching  a  subjective  solution  of  speculative  problems.  The  conver- 
sion of  a  critic  or  the  instruction  of  a  student  on  doubted  questions 
may  require  me  to  establish  a  general  premise  or  truth  which  does  not 
carry  with  this  self -evidently  the  truth  of  any  given  proposition,  and 
it  may  never  carry  it  with  it  in  any  other  way.  But  it  often  happens 
that,  if  truth  of  any  kind  is  discovered,  it  must  be  independently  of 
some  particular  mooted  matter,  and  we  may  get  no  farther.     But  this 


2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

separation  of  subject  matter  of  discussion  does  not  imply  the  absolute 
separation  of  "  how "  and  "  what,"  process  and  object,  "form"  and 
"  content,"  though  it  defines  the  issues  on  which  any  profitable  delib- 
eration is  possible.  While  I  mean,  therefore,  to  recognize  an  abstract 
distinction  of  the  two  questions  I  shall  have  reasons  for  often,  if  not 
always,  considering  them  together.  The  primary  question  will  turn 
upon  what  we  mean  by  "  knowledge."  That  term  has  been  so  much 
abused  and  so  little  defined  that  discussions  of  epistemology  and  meta- 
physics are  perfectly  useless  until  we  know  exactly  what  problem  we 
are  discussing. 

There  are  three  movements  which  affect  the  definition  of  the  prob- 
lem. The  first  culminates  in  Plato,  the  second  in  Descartes  and  the 
third  in  Kant.  This,  of  course,  is  only  a  way  of  suggesting  Greek, 
Mediaeval  and  Modern  philosophy.  But  I  think  the  nature  of  the 
*'  moments  "  entering  into  the  problems  are  better  expressed  in  the 
personalities  which  either  represented  or  initiated  a  tendency  than  in  a 
mere  chronological  distinction.  The  first  of  these  movements  was  not 
so  vitally  connected  with  religious  ideas  as  the  second,  which  was  wholly 
preoccupied  with  these.  Greek  thought  began  in  cosmological  specu- 
lations, Scholastic  thought  in  theological,  and  Cartesian  and  Kantian 
thought  in  epistemological  problems ,  apparently  eschewing  an  interest 
in  either  of  the  other  two  questions. 

Greek  thought  began  its  reflection  with  entire  confidence  in  its 
ability  to  solve  its  problems.  These  were  the  origin  of  the  world 
and  the  nature  of  human  knowledge.  Scepticism  as  to  human  faculty 
was  not  known  and  did  not  arise  until  the  Sophists  began  to  apply 
the  principle  of  change  to  sense  perception.  Every  thinker  from 
Thales  to  this  school  accepted  without  question  human  capacity  for 
coping  with  the  questions  of  the  universe  and  knowledge.  The  dis- 
tinction between  sense  and  reason  in  some  of  them  did  not  indicate 
any  properly  sceptical  spirit  or  method  as  to  the  fact  of  knowledge, 
but  only  as  to  the  source  of  true  knowledge,  however  it  may  have 
stimulated  the  rise  of  doubt.  The  distinction  only  served  to  mark  a 
difference  of  opinion  regarding  the  nature  of  this  knowledge  as  deter- 
mined by  its  origin,  each  of  them  being  assumed  to  be  valid  for  its 
purpose.  There  was  no  question  as  to  how  we  obtained  "  knowl- 
edge" generally  and  apart  from  cosmological  problems  and  objects. 
The  question  was  whether  sense  or  reason  gave  us  the  knowledge  we 
actually  possessed  or  were  assumed  to  possess  about  nature.  This 
knowledge  was  granted.  It  was  only  disputed  between  the  schools 
whether  sense  or  reason  represented  the  most  important  source  of  it. 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

Of  course  there  were  differences  of  opinion  regarding  the  nature  of 
cosmic  unity,  whether  of  the  pluralistic  or  monistic  type,  but  all  agreed 
that  there  was  a  unity  of  some  kind,  so  that,  in  so  far  as  the  process 
of  knowledge  was  concerned,  the  differences  of  opinion  turned  on  the 
sensory  or  intellectual,  or  in  modern  parlance,  the  materialistic  and  the 
spiritual,  view  of  this  knowledge,  the  conflict  being  between  the  com- 
mon and  the  educated  man  in  regard  to  the  world  and  its  phenomena, 
though  in  general  they  held  to  very  much  the  same  propositions. 

It  was  with  that  remarkable  movement  which  began  with  the 
Sophists,  that  real  scepticism  took  its  rise.  These  thinkers  began  to  toy 
with  the  "relativity"  or  '*  phenomenality "  of  knowledge,  stimulated 
thereto,  no  doubt,  by  the  discovery  of  illusions  in  sense  and  reason 
and  aided  by  a  confidence  in  logic  which  might  have  been  incompatible 
with  their  doctrine.  The  nature  of  "  objectivity  "  had  not  been  doubted 
before,  whether  regarded  as  an  object  of  sense  or  reason,  but  under 
sophistic  discoveries  distrust  of  human  faculty  began.  It  did  not  of 
course  in  most  of  its  disciples  take  the  form  of  doubting  the  validity 
of  what  we  would  call  the  states  of  consciousness  as  such  to-day,  but 
it  did  question  the  validity  of  our  supposed  sensory  "  knowledge"  of 
the  world.  This  is  to  say  that  the  mind  began  to  wonder  if  its 
"  ideas"  of  "  reality"  were  correct,  or  in  any  way  represented  what 
they  were  supposed  to  represent.  The  common  mind  had  always 
trusted,  and  the  philosopher  was  not  disposed  to  disagree  with  the  com- 
mon mind's  verdict,  that  the  physical  world  as  presented  to  sensation 
was  in  any  respect  different  from  its  appearance.  The  philosopher 
might  indulge  in  all  sorts  of  speculations  about  its  evolution  or  origin 
and  suppose  all  sorts  of  supersensible  "realities,"  but  he  always  assumed 
that  they  were  like  the  "  reality  "  which  he  saw  and  felt,  only  that  they 
were  too  "fine"  to  be  perceived  by  our  ordinary  sense  perceptions. 
In  technical  language  he  assumed  no  antithesis  between  what  he  saw 
and  what  he  did  not  see.  But  the  sceptic  of  the  sophistic  period  began 
to  believe  that  our  senses  were  not  only  not  able  to  perceive  "  reality  " 
but  that  the  ideas  formed  from  sensation  about  that  * '  reality  "  were 
illusory.  He  extended  his  doubt  to  the  general  principles  of  morality 
and  many  of  the  intellectual  convictions  on  other  subjects.  Scepticism 
thus  obtained  a  footing  from  which  it  has  not  yet  been  dislodged  for 
all  those  individuals  who  have  to  pass  through  the  same  mental  devel- 
opment. As  in  all  ages,  and  as  perhaps  will  always  be  necessary,  the 
problem  of  knowledge  and  the  problem  of  things  went  together, 
though  a  foundation  was  laid  for  their  distinction  in  some  form.  All 
the  facts  were  there  which  resulted  finally  in  such  antitheses  as  "  phe- 


4  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

nomenal  "  and  "  noumenal,"  "  absolute"  and  "  relative,"  "  ideal "  and 
"  real,"  "  sensational "  and  "  rational."  Previous  speculation  was  prop- 
erly metaphysical,  as  it  was  occupied  with  the  nature  of  things,  con- 
fidence in  mental  faculty  being  assumed.  The  subjective  world  was 
not  a  disputed  factor  in  the  case.  But  the  sophistic  movement  opened 
up  the  field  of  illusion  with  all  its  manifold  puzzles  which  have  ever 
since  provoked  seriousness  as  much  as  they  elicited  mirth.  It  attacked 
the  very  stronghold  of  conviction,  and  if  it  did  not  prevent  belief  from 
ultimately  having  its  way,  it  gave  that  mental  instinct  all  the  trouble  it 
could  devise  in  the  efforts  to  justify  itself.  The  old  opposition  between 
sense  and  reason  as  arbiters  of  knowledge  became  a  new  opposition 
between  mind  and  nature,  consciousness  and  object.  This  latter  form 
of  statement  was  long  in  developing,  but  it  was  nascent  in  the  concep- 
tions which  the  sceptical  movement  of  the  Sophists  initiated.  They 
suggested  the  analysis  of  mind  and  raised  questions  which  tended  to 
dispute  its  capacity  to  "  know,"  or  to  conceive  the  "  nature  of  things  " 
in  any  such  terms  as  had  been  previously  taken  for  granted. 

Plato  follows  with  a  constructive  effort  where  the  Sophists  had 
been  destructive.  He  did  not  dispute  the  "phenomenal"  nature  of 
sense  deliverances,  but  endeavored  to  supplement  their  defective  results 
with  the  insights  of  higher  faculties.  He  was  thoroughly  saturated 
with  both  the  metaphysics  and  the  psychology  of  previous  schools, 
and  felt  the  force  of  sceptical  difficulties  so  strongly  that  his  whole 
elaborate  philosophy  was  written  to  combat  them  and  to  provide  an 
answer  to  the  questions  raised  by  them.  In  doing  this  he  succeeded 
in  completely  arresting  the  development  of  scepticism  until  its  later 
revival  when  Greek  civilization  was  on  the  way  to  the  grave.  The 
breadth  and  depth  of  his  thought,  the  charm  of  his  style,  and  the  com- 
pass of  his  genius,  as  well  as  those  social  needs  which  defy  all  scep- 
ticism except  that  of  a  reforming  kind,  were  too  impressive  to  permit 
even  the  witty  and  disputatious  Greeks  to  waste  their  energies  in  intel- 
lectual paradoxes  and  laborious  trifles.  Consequently,  Plato  made  an 
effectual  and  more  or  less  successful  attempt  to  keep  back  the  tide  of 
scepticism,  which,  though  it  suggested  the  modern  distinction  between 
the  subjective  and  objective,  was  not  strong  enough  to  destroy  the 
fundamental  assumption  of  antiquity,  namely,  the  identity  between 
"  thought  "  and  "  reality." 

Plato's  system  has  been  called  Idealism,  but  there  can  hardly  be  a 
more  misleading  conception  of  it  than  is  conveyed  by  this  term.  The 
initiated  understand  it,  and  defined  to  suit  the  case  there  can  be  no 
objection  to  this  description  of  it.     But  the  term  "  idealism "   is   so 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

infected  with  the  subjective  implications  of  the  psychological  point  of 
view  and  modern  assumptions  couched  in  the  same  language  that  the 
reader  is  certain  to  obtain  a  totally  false  conception  of  Plato's  philos- 
ophy so  described.  Intellectualism  as  opposed  to  sensationalism, 
metaphysically  defined,  would  more  nearly  define  his  doctrine,  as  it 
insisted  upon  assigning  to  the  higher  functions  of  the  mind  the  duty  of 
determining  truth  and  the  nature  of  "  reality."  We  could  just  as  well 
call  his  system  "  realism  "  as  "  idealism,"  since  the  very  conception  of 
his  u  idea"  was  that  of  the  "  real,"  no  matter  what  definition  we  give 
either  one  of  them.  But  the  essential  thing  to  know  and  recognize  is 
the  simple  fact  that  the  ordinary  translation  of  his  language  will  give 
us  no  true  conception  of  his  philosophy.  The  opposition  which  de- 
fined the  fundamental  controversies  in  the  earlier  metaphysics  and  cos- 
mology was  that  between  the  "  one  "  and  the  "  many,"  by  which  was 
meant  the  question  whether  the  absolute  was  single  or  plural,  whether 
monism  or  pluralism  was  true,  whether  monism  or  atomism  represented 
the  nature  of  things.  The  opposition,  which  was  not  worked  out,  and 
which  defined  the  position  of  the  Sophists,  was  that  between  subjective 
and  objective.  But  with  Plato  this  opposition,  absorbing  all  others,  was 
that  between  the  transient  and  permanent,  the  ephemeral  and  the  eter- 
nal. His  psychology  did  not  affect  this  position.  As  between  mind 
and  matter,  psychology  and  metaphysics,  his  doctrine  was  the  same 
for  both.  Plato  remained  true  to  the  general  monistic  traditions  of 
Greece.  He  never  supposed  that  the  internal  and  external  worlds  were 
different  in  kind.  It  might  even  be  maintained  that  he  did  not  distin- 
guish in  kind  between  the  transient  and  the  permanent  but  only  in 
values.  It  was  around  the  central  fact  of  change  that  his  whole  phi- 
losophy turned,  as  Lotze  says  all  metaphysical  inquiries  must  turn. 
He  probably  would  have  agreed  with  Lucretius  that  "  motion  "  is  eter- 
nal. He  was  possibly  not  aware,  or  only  half  aware  of  the  equivoca- 
tion in  the  Greek  term  xjVijffc?.  This  generally  did  service  for  the  ideas 
of  motion  and  change  in  modern  parlance.  He  admitted  the  "  becom- 
ing," change,  progress,  evolution  of  Heraclitus,  but  with  it  he  saw,  or 
thought  he  saw,  something  permanent  or  eternal  which  was  thus  not 
subject  to  the  law  of  change.  He  might  call  it  "  substance,'' 
44  essence,"  "  being,"  "  idea,"  "  form,"  but  it  was  still  an  activity  of 
some  kind.  Hence  he  could  well  apply  his  term  "  idea,"  as  we  cannot 
after  Lockian  usage,  to  both  the  mental  and  material,  to  the  "  univer- 
sal "  whether  in  consciousness  or  out  of  it.  The  antithesis  between 
subjective  and  objective  was  not  recognized  by  him.  The  nature  of 
the  soul  and  of  the  world  was  the  same.     It  would  make  no  difference 


6  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

whether  we  called  it  matter  or  spirit.  One  was  only  a  finer  aspect  or 
kind  of  the  other,  just  as  it  was  in  Lucretius.  The  two  men  appear 
to  have  differed  on  the  question  of  the  "  immortality  of  the  soul,"  but 
in  reality  they  agreed.  Their  difference  was  in  their  definition  and 
conception  of  the  term  "  soul."  Plato  no  more  believed  in  personal 
immortality  than  did  Lucretius.  It  was  the  "  substance  "  of  the  "  soul  " 
that  Plato  thought  imperishable,  and  so  did  Lucretius.  It  was  the 
"form"  of  the  "soul"  that  Lucretius  thought  perishable,  and  so 
thought  Plato,  the  meaning  of  "  form  "  having  changed  its  character 
between  the  two  philosophies.  Both  were  monistic  in  regard  to  the 
questions  of  matter  and  mind.  Mind  was  not  regarded  as  immaterial, 
but  only  as  supersensible.  Even  the  elemental  physical  universe  was 
supersensible.  Hence  when  it  came  to  his  psychology  Plato  had 
not  to  reckon  with  an  opposition  between  consciousness  and  "  reality" 
or  an  external  world,  for  they  were  essentially  identical  in  kind.  He 
had  only  to  discover  the  faculty  which  revealed  to  us  the  permanent 
as  distinct  from  the  transient.  The  Theastetus  discusses  whether  this 
faculty  is  sense  perception,  memory,  reason,  or  intuition,  and  leaves 
the  question  undecided  except  that  somehow  the  mind  actually  obtains 
a  knowledge  of  this  permanent  nature  of  things  mental  and  material. 
In  fact  "  knowledge"  becomes  a  term  expressive  of  this  fact,  rather 
than  a  word  for  what  we  should  call  "  function  "  of  brain  or  soul.  It 
was  an  activity,  but  it  was  also  an  activity  identical  in  kind  with  the 
thing  known.  We  might  express  it  by  saying  that  consciousness  was 
the  transmitted  activity  of  the  external  world  into  the  mind  or  subject, 
the  "  moment"  of  transition  from  the  external  to  the  internal  world. 
The  billiard  ball  but  receives  the  motion  of  the  cue  and  retains  it  as 
its  own  activity  until  imparted  to  another.  Consciousness  with  Plato 
is  thus  but  the  transformed  "  motion"  of  the  external  world  and  it  is 
only  its  meaning  that  is  permanent,  while  its  kind  or  its  nature  is  the 
same  as  that  which  produces  it,  namely,  the  activity  of  the  physical 
world.  "Knowing"  and  "being"  are  identical.  The  modern  an- 
tithesis, outside  the  Hegelian  system,  between  "knowledge"  and 
"reality"  is  not  known.  They  are  identical.  The  only  opposition 
recognized  is  between  the  changeable  and  the  permanent,  the  "  phe- 
nomenal" and  the  "  noumenal,"  and  the  "  phenomenal "  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  external  world,  but  applies  equally  to  one  part  of  the 
internal  world,  namely  that  of  sensation.  In  fact,  it  would  be  better 
to  say  that  sensation  and  the  sensible  world  were  the  same  in  kind, 
namely,  "  phenomenal,"  while  the  supersensible  world  both  physical 
and  mental  is  the  same  in  kind.     The  opposition  is  not  between  the 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

internal  and  external,  but  between  two  aspects  of  both.  The  super- 
sensible material  world  is  the  "  object,"  as  we  should  say,  of  "  intui- 
tive knowledge,"  but  as  Plato  would  possibly  say,  the  "  reflection"  of 
the  mind,  an  expression  of  the  same  nature. 

It  is  thus  apparent  that  Plato  opposed  scepticism,  not  as  a  doctrine 
wholly  without  foundation,  but  as  one  not  expressing  the  ultimate 
nature  of  things.  Heraclitus  and  the  Sophists  were  simply  one  sided. 
They  had  a  half  truth  which  Plato  regarded  as  worse  than  no  truth  at 
all.  He  answered  it  by  supplementing  it.  He  accepted  its  conception 
of  sensation,  but  he  added  to  it  a  conception  of  reason  which  the  logic 
of  scepticism  implicitly  recognized,  but  which  the  sceptic  personally 
never  saw.  He  did  not  regard  sense  as  wholly  given  over  to  illusion. 
It,  too,  had  a  meaning  for  "  reality,"  namely  the  source  of  our  "  knowl- 
edge" of  change.  He  regarded  it  as  illusory  only  when  taken  as 
giving  the  ultimate  nature  of  things,  but  not  illusory  as  expressing  or 
giving  the  phenomenal  side  of  "reality."  In  one  point  he  failed. 
He  never  adequately  connected  the  two  aspects  of  his  system.  Modern 
thought  does  it  by  making  the  higher  functions  of  mind  depend  chrono- 
logically, and  perhaps  "  causally,"  upon  the  sensory.  This  we  effect 
by  saying  that  all  "  knowledge  "  depends  on  sensation  though  it  is  not 
constituted  by  sensation.  But  Plato  recognized  no  such  relation. 
Here  he  exhibited  what  is  called  his  irresolvable  dualism.  The  func- 
tions of  sense  and  intellect  were  independent  of  each  other,  possessed 
no  reciprocity  of  action,  had  no  common  object  and  could  in  no  intel- 
ligible way  unite  the  "  phenomenal  "  and  "  real,"  that  is,  the  sensible 
and  the  supersensible  worlds. 

The  Stoics  and  Epicureans  supplied  what  Plato  omitted.  They 
superimposed  intellectual  functions,  or  reason,  upon  the  data  of  sense, 
and  in  this  way  gave  some  unity  to  the  nature  of  both  thought  and 
things.  Sense  became  the  medium  for  all  knowledge  and  intellect  was 
only  the  final  court  of  appeal,  or  the  one  determinant  of  it  attending 
sensation.  Thus  sense  came  to  stand  between  what  it  transmitted  and 
what  reason  adjudged.  Thus  "  experience  "  in  some  sense  of  the  term 
was  the  "origin  "of  "  knowledge,"  the  primary  criterion  or  source 
of  what  we  u  know."  The  two  schools  were  still  monistic  in  their 
philosophy  and  psychology,  the  Epicurean  even  in  his  atomism.  After 
them  scepticism  tried  to  revive  its  fortunes  in  the  doctrines  of  Antis- 
thenes  and  Pyrrho,  and  belief  its  fortunes  in  the  last  and  despairing 
systems  of  Neo-Platonism,  both  of  which  discredited,  or  sought  to 
discredit,  sensory  experience.  But  the  more  sober  and  scientific  con- 
ception of  philosophical  and  psychological  problems  was  found  in  the 


8  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Stoics  and  Epicureans  after  Plato,  and  whatever  view  they  took  of 
sense  perception  in  relation  to  its  object  they  but  followed  the  correc- 
tion which  was  instituted  by  Aristotle  in  the  Platonic  psychology,  and 
this  was  to  give  sense  perception  a  primary  rather  than  a  secondary 
place  in  the  origin  of  knowledge.  All  the  rest  remains  practically  the 
same  as  Plato's  doctrine  in  its  essential  meaning. 

When  it  comes  to  summarizing  the  conceptions  of  Greek  thought 
in  the  doctrines  of  "  knowledge  "  and  "  reality,"  it  will  be  found  that, 
in  spite  of  a  few  deviations  from  the  general  rule  regarding  sense  per- 
ception or  "  experience,"  as  with  the  Eleatics  and  Plato,  also  even 
Heraclitus,  the  Greek  mind  assigned  sense  perception  the  primary 
place  in  the  functions  of  "  knowledge."  The  main  discussions  cen- 
tered about  the  question  as  to  what  this  function  decided  regarding 
"  reality."  It  was  not  primarily  interested  in  the  psychological  proc- 
ess, that  is  epistemological  problems,  by  which  a  knowledge  of 
things  was  gained,  but  in  what  the  nature  of  things  consisted.  All  its 
interests  in  psychology  were  subordinated  to  this  one  end.  Its  genius 
was  essentially  metaphysical.  In  this  it  began  and  ended  in  the 
assumption  that  the  internal  and  external  worlds  were  the  same  in  kind. 
Its  thinking  was  governed  by  the  principle  of  identity.  Causality,  as 
we  usually  conceive  it,  had  a  secondary  place,  indeed  was  hardly 
recognized  at  all.  It  obtained  a  slight  notice  in  the  love  and  hate  of 
Empedocles,  in  the  "  moving  cause  "  of  Plato,  and  the  "  prime  mover" 
of  Aristotle,  a  cause,  however,  which  once  set  the  universe  to  moving 
and  then  sat  outside  it  idle  watching  it  go.  It  was  the  sense  of  unity 
or  identity  that  dominated  the  Greek  consciousness,  as  this  was  its  first 
great  discovery  in  the  contemplation  of  nature  which  the  unreflective 
mind  had  supposed  to  be  more  chaotic  than  it  really  was.  It  was 
this  instinct  or  tendency  that  prevented  it  from  becoming  dualistic.  It 
might  admit  a  supersensible  world,  as  it  did,  but  it  would  not  admit 
anything  superphysical  or  immaterial.  Its  very  notion  of  a  cosmos 
was  unity  of  kind,  while  to  us  with  changed  points  of  view  this  ex- 
presses nothing  more  than  order,  a  teleological,  not  necessarily  an 
ontological  unity.  Psychology  and  epistemology  were  interesting  only 
as  they  aided  in  the  determination  of  this  result.  All  its  investigations 
and  all  its  terminology  had  a  direct  or  indirect,  a  nearer  or  remoter 
relation  to  the  question  of  the  transient  or  eternal.  The  "  absolute" 
and  the  "  relative,"  the  "  phenomenal  "  and  the  u  real,"  "  being  "  and 
"  becoming,"  "  knowledge  "  and  "  sensation"  when  applied  to  Greek 
conceptions  of  fundamental  problems  had  no  interest  primarily,  if  at 
all,  in  the  antitheses  between  the  subjective  and  objective,  but  only  in 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

that  between  the  ephemeral  and  the  eternal.  Its  problems  were  phys- 
ical or  metaphysical,  not  psychological  or  cognitive,  and  so  concerned 
what  was  permanent.  The  Epicureans  thought  that  only  the  primary 
elements  were  permanent.  Plato  thought  that  also  certain  finer  activ- 
ities of  their  compounds  were  continued  in  the  metamorphic  changes  of 
nature  while  admitting  the  eternity  of  all  substance,  although  this  was 
conceived  in  somewhat  the  same  form  as  the  modern  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy.  But  everywhere  the  issues  centered  in  what 
was  eternal  and  what  was  transient. 

The  momentum  and  influence  of  this  tendency  was  not  lost  in 
Christianity.  It  survived  in  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
and  the  transient  nature  of  the  physical  order.  The  physical  universe 
was  conceived  as  the  creation  of  a  divine  being  and  subject  entirely  to 
his  will  and  this  had  decreed  that  it  should  be  destroyed.  The  soul  of 
man,  though  it  was  created,  was  made  imperishable,  at  least  upon  cer- 
tain moral  conditions.  But  in  general  we  have  the  conceptions  of 
Plato  and  Neo-Platonists  affecting  the  whole  period  of  Christian  de- 
velopment. Plato  had  depreciated  the  sensory  world  and  the  Neo- 
Platonists  had  carried  this  so  far  as  to  describe  the  "  real"  world  as 
the  negation  of  all  that  was  "  known  "  as  sensory  or  mental.  It  placed 
the  supreme  interest  of  man  in  something  wholly  transcendental. 
Christianity  accepted  this  conception  and  concentrated  all  moral  inter- 
ests in  such  a  world  beyond  sense  and  made  the  individual  soul  imper- 
ishable. A  transcendental  world  of  "  reality,"  spiritual  in  nature, 
whatever  that  was  or  meant,  beyond  both  the  sensible  and  supersen- 
sible physical  worlds,  became  now  an  object  of  belief.  It  was  the 
negation  of  all  that  was  supposed  of  the  material  world,  whether  sen- 
sible or  supersensible,  and  so  was  called  immaterial.  In  the  contro- 
versy with  Greek  thought  at  the  time,  which  was  inevitable,  it  became 
a  question  as  to  how  such  a  world  was  known.  The  Greek  had  been 
accustomed  to  ask  for  the  reasons  which  justified  a  belief,  and  he  called 
these  reasons  "  knowledge."  It  was  not  enough  that  a  fact  should  be 
asserted  to  exist.  He  must  have  proof.  He  must  have  some  certitude 
that  the  alleged  fact  was  founded  in  experience.  He  was  accustomed 
to  insist  that  whatever  was  "  known  "  or  believable  was  attested  by  its 
phenomenal  appearance  in  the  physical  world,  and  hence  by  some 
sensory  experience,  or  perhaps  by  some  regular  law  of  "  nature."  He 
consistently  applied  this  view  of  things  to  his  supersensible  physical 
world  and  exacted  of  all  -assertions  the  same  criterion.  Hence  when 
the  existence  of  an  immaterial  soul,  of  divine  incarnation,  of  miracles, 
of  personal  existence  after  death,  of  a  personal  God  were  asserted  he 


IO  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

naturally  enough  put  them  to  the  test  of  experience  and  reason. 
Christian  thought  readily  enough  accepted  the  Greek  conception  of 
"  knowledge  "  as  applied  to  the  physical  world  and  originating  in  sen- 
sory experience,  and  so  placed  its  beliefs  on  grounds  other  than 
"knowledge."  It  set  up  a  new  organon  of  belief  which  it  called 
faith.  We  must  remember,  however,  that  at  first  this  "  faith"  was 
not  an  intellectual  process,  a  faculty  of  knowing  or  perceiving,  or  an 
assent  to  propositions,  whatever  it  became  afterward.  It  was  at  first 
a  name  for  a  certain  quality  of  will,  fidelity  to  a  person  or  principle  of 
action.  This  was  its  original  meaning  in  more  languages  than  one,  in 
Greek,  Roman,  and  especially  in  Hebrew.  "  Faithfulness  "  expressed 
its  proper  meaning  originally.  But  the  existence  of  a  large  number  of 
alleged  facts  like  the  resurrection,  the  incarnation,  life  after  death,, 
miracles,  etc.,  showed  that  ideas  and  convictions  were  as  essential  a 
part  of  Christianity  as  action  and  its  social  scheme  of  practical  moral- 
ity. It  was  this  body  of  alleged  facts  which  brought  it  into  contro- 
versy with  Greek  modes  of  speculation  and  required  it  to  assign  some 
canon  of  evidence  for  the  fundamental  beliefs  on  which  it  founded  its 
transcendental  world  in  which  it  concentrated  all  its  interests,  after  its 
immediate  social  scheme  came  to  an  end.  Having  admitted  that 
"knowledge"  was  of  this  world  it  gradually  substituted  an  intellec- 
tual meaning  for  the  old  one  expressed  by  "  faith  "  and  set  it  up  as  an 
organon  for  beliefs  beyond  the  reach  of  "  knowledge  "  as  either  a  sen- 
sory or  rational  process.  Thus,  "  faith  "  became  a  name  for  an  assent 
to  truths  rather  than  a  quality  of  will.  The  Christian  would  admit 
that  his  doctrines  were  not  an  object  of  reason  and  he  simply  estab- 
lished a  change  of  venue  in  the  controversy  by  insisting  that  there  was 
another  and  higher  court  of  conviction  than  human  experience  in  the 
sensory  and  rational  world. 

There  was  here  a  sort  of  double  dualism  like  that  of  Plato.  We 
saw  that  Plato  found  the  antithesis  between  "phenomena"  and 
"  reality  "  to  hold  true  for  both  the  internal  and  the  external  worlds. 
The  dualism  of  one  was  parallel  to  that  in  the  other,  though  the  antith- 
esis was  the  same  in  both.  But  in  Christian  thought  the  dualism 
between  the  material  and  the  spiritual  worlds  was  not  always  ex- 
pressed in  the  same  terms  as  that  between  the  two  functions  of  the 
internal  world.  In  one  it  was  the  dualism  between  matter  and  spirit 
and  the  other  the  dualism  between  knowledge  and  faith.  The  material 
world  was  the  object  of  "  knowledge,"  the  spiritual  world  the  object 
of  "  faith."  But  various  influences,  some  of  them  the  result  of 
natural  human  instincts  and  experience  with  the  practical  problems  of 


INTR  ODUC  TION.  1 1 

life,  and  some  of  them  the  effect  of  philosophic  traditions,  conspired 
to  raise  the  question  whether  faith  could  provide  the  certitude  which 
seemed  so  necessary  if  the  issues  defined  by  religion  were  so  serious  as 
the  doctrine  of  salvation  implied.  This  state  of  matters  at  once 
started  a  discussion  of  the  relative  claims  of  faith  and  reason,  "  knowl- 
edge "  coming  to  mean  certitude  of  conviction  in  regard  to  any  object 
of  consciousness  rather  than  conceptions  of  experience.  There  was 
latent  in  it  the  whole  question  of  the  relative  values  of  the  religious 
and  the  secular  life,  but  the  apparent  controversy  turned  about  the 
question  whether  reason  could  certify  the  existence  of  the  transcendental 
objects  of  faith  and  give  them  the  certitude  which,  in  the  secular  life, 
was  the  necessary  or  accepted  justification  for  action.  That  is,  would 
reason  adequately  support  the  existence  of  God,  immortality,  the  in- 
carnation, the  resurrection,  miracles,  the  atonement  and  the  whole 
body  of  religious  doctrine  to  make  them  effective  and  as  obligatory  to 
consciousness  as  "  natural  knowledge  "  ?  In  the  process  of  the  dispute 
the  very  nature  of  the  points  of  issue  soon  subordinated  all  the  minor 
questions  to  the  two  general  ones  regarding  the  existence  of  God  and 
the  immortality  of  the  soul.  The  controversy  waged  with  varying 
fortunes  for  reason  and  faith  until  reason  finally  conquered.  The  dis- 
cussion between  nominalism  and  realism  with  the  victory  for  the 
former  revived  the  subjective  or  psychological  conception  of  "  knowl- 
edge," so  that,  with  the  revival  of  learning,  it  prepared  the  way  for 
the  philosophy  of  Descartes.  It  of  course  took  centuries  to  effect  this 
result,  but  the  outcome  was  simply  the  natural  consequence  of  the 
struggle  between  the  unsatisfactory  dualism  of  Christian  thought  and 
the  essentially  monistic  influence  of  Greek  speculation  which  still 
affected  thought  wherever  it  had  the  fortune  to  touch  it.  All  but  the 
two  main  problems  were  gradually  relegated  to  theology  and  lost  an 
interest  for  philosophy,  as  they  were  contingent  upon  the  proof  of  the 
first  two  regarding  the  existence  of  God  and  the  soul  of  man. 

Descartes  came  at  the  junction  of  several  intellectual  movements. 
The  old  astronomy  had  been  shattered.  The  Renaissance  had  rein- 
stated an  interest  in  ancient  literature  and  philosophy.  Nominalism 
had  given  a  subjective  impulse  to  ideas.  The  whole  system  of  Scholas- 
ticism was  discredited.  The  New  World  had  been  discovered  and 
had  begun  to  excite  the  imagination  of  men.  Physical  science  had 
arisen  and  diverted  human  interest  into  things  terrestrial  as  religious 
thought  had  confined  it  to  things  transcendental.  The  consequence 
was  that  Descartes  took  up  the  work  of  adjusting  the  claims  between 
scepticism  and  faith.     He  accepted  and  defined  more  clearly  than  ever 


12  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  metaphysical  dualism  of  Christianity  in  regard  to  the  nature  of 
matter  and  mind,  but  he  returned  to  a  psychological  monism  in  his 
conception  of  the  ultimate  functions  attesting  man's  knowledge.  He 
took  a  position  which  defined  for  all  subsequent  thought  the  funda- 
mental antithesis  between  the  subjective  and  objective,  whatever  that 
may  mean,  and  reinstated  the  psychological  or  anthropological,  or 
perhaps  better  the  anthropocentric,  point  of  view  in  speculation  on  all 
the  great  questions  of  philosophy.  His  metaphysical  dualism,  owing 
to  certain  definitions  in  his  system  and  to  the  natural  instinct  for  unity 
in  the  philosophic  mind,  easily  passed  into  the  metaphysical  monism 
of  Spinoza.  But  this  is  not  the  chief  interest  of  his  influence.  The 
fundamental  distrust  of  sense  perception  with  which  he  started  and  the 
final  reliance  on  "  consciousness"  which,  both  from  its  conception  as 
a  function  of  the  soul  and  as  definitely  excluded  from  the  nature  of 
external  reality  or  matter,  became  a  purely  subjective  fact  and  criterion 
of  "  knowledge,"  gave  rise  to  the  controversy  between  realism  and 
idealism  where,  before,  it  had  been  between  materialism  and  spiritualism. 
Ancient  thought,  as  we  have  seen,  accepted  no  opposition  between  the 
nature  of  the  internal  and  the  nature  of  the  external  worlds  until 
Christian  thought  defined  their  relation.  What  may  be  called  the 
"  identity  between  thought  and  reality  "  was  the  fundamental  postulate 
of  Greek  speculation  in  its  best  estate.  The  influence  of  Christo- 
Cartesian  thought  was  to  establish  an  antithesis  where  ancient  specula- 
tion accepted  an  identity.  Mind  and  matter  were  so  separated  that  no 
reciprocity  or  interaction  became  possible.  In  Greek  thought  the 
assumed  identity  of  "  knowing"  and  "  being"  prevented  all  difficulties 
suggested  by  the  modern  question,  "  How  can  the  mind  know  external 
reality  ?  "  But  when  Cartesian  philosophy  proposes  to  shut  the  mind 
up  in  itself,  and  while  making  consciousness  the  final  court  of  truth 
also  makes  it  a  purely  subjective  fact,  it  suggests  or  produces  an  an- 
tithesis between  subject  and  object  which  reinstates  all  the  scepticism 
of  the  Sophistic  schools  and  later  Academy.  Consciousness,  at  least  of 
the  sensory  type,  could  either  not  attest  the  existence  of  an  external 
"  reality  "  or  it  could  not  represent  its  "  nature."  The  mind  was  shut 
up  to  itself  for  "  knowledge."  Its  own  states  were  all  that  it  could 
"know,"  assuming  still  that  "knowledge"  and  "being "were  the 
same,  though  refusing  to  apply  the  postulate  to  external  "  reality." 

Locke,  Berkeley,  Hume  and  Kant  simply  take-up  this  cue  and 
variously  follow  it  out  to  its  logical  consequences.  Locke  let  slip  the 
remark  that  "simple  ideas,"  which  were  given  in  sensation  were 
"real  "and  that  "  complex  ideas,"  which  were  the  product  of  the 


INTRODUCTION.  1 3 


u  understanding"  were  "  fictitious."  Among  these  "  complex  ideas  " 
were  those  of  "  cause,"  God  and  the  soul.  This  simply  opened  wide 
the  door  to  scepticism,  which,  of  course,  was  fully  enough  suggested 
by  the  subjective  tendency  in  psychology  in  the  field  of  sensation. 
Still  Locke  believed  in  both  mind  and  matter.  But  Berkeley,  taking 
the  subjective  conception  of  sensation  more  seriously  denied  the  exist- 
ence of  "  matter"  and  admitted  only  that  of  "  spirit."  Hume,  with 
some  sense  of  humor  and  sceptical  mischief  in  his  nature,  put  Locke 
and  Berkeley  together  and  asked  for  the  evidence  for  both  matter  and 
spirit,  and  made  himself  content  with  phenomenalism.  Kant  started 
to  refute  Hume,  denied  his  premises  and  accepted  his  conclusion. 
Philosophy  had  before  him  embraced  all  the  great  problems  of  human 
reflection,  but  had  gradually  dropped  those  which  it  was  willing  to 
leave  to  religion  proper,  as  either  not  interested  in  them  or  as  con- 
tingent on  more  general  conceptions,  and  retained  as  its  final  claim  the 
adjudication  of  belief  in  the  existence  of  God,  immortality  and  freedom. 
Kant  after  indicating  that  philosophy  had,  like  Hecuba,  to  mourn  for 
the  loss  of  her  children,  proceeded  to  rob  it  of  the  last  excuse  for  its 
existence,  and  though  he  tried  to  pacify  religion  by  bringing  in  at  the 
back  door  what  he  had  thrown  out  at  the  front  door,  he  attained  noth- 
ing more  definite  than  the  phenomenalism  of  Hume. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  in  detail  the  general  principles  of  these 
three  men  between  Descartes  and  Kant.  In  so  far  as  the  main  prob- 
lems of  philosophy  are  concerned  they  show  only  different  degrees  of 
the  same  tendency.  They  have  the  same  starting  point,  namely,  the 
subjective  character  of  consciousness  and  the  limitation  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  to  its  data.  Descartes  did  not  seriously  question  the  existence 
of  the  external  world  when  he  put  the  hypothetical  query  about  the 
trustworthiness  of  sensation.  He  showed  that  this  was  only  a  method 
of  indicating  that  the  final  court  of  adjudication  was  the  higher  re- 
flective consciousness  which  included  "  reason"  and  its  functions.  In 
spite  of  his  apparent  scepticism  of  sense  perception  he  still  accepts  its 
importance  in  the  derivation  of  '*  knowledge."  Locke  does  the  same. 
But  Berkeley  applies  the  dicta  of  scepticism  with  full  force  to  the 
judgments  of  sense,  but  is  too  orthodox  in  theology  to  see  the  appli- 
cation of  the  same  assumptions  to  "  spirit."  Hume  simply  applies 
the  logical  knife  to  Berkeley's  idealism  and  leaves  to  "knowledge" 
nothing  but  sensations,  the  fleeting  transient  phenomena  of  mind% 
Kant  does  the  same,  but  expresses  himself  in  a  terminology  that  is 
well  calculated  to  deceive  the  ordinary  philosopher  and  theologian. 
He  is  emphatic  in  his  assertion  of  the  purely  phenomenal  nature  of 


14  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

"  knowledge,"  the  non-provable  nature  of  the  three  main  problems  of 
metaphysics,  agnosticism  in  regard  to  "  things  in  themselves,"  and  the 
"subjectivity"  of  things  in  general.  Whatever  he  may  be  supposed 
to  have  meant  by  his  doctrine  of  time  and  space,  he  effectually  installed 
scepticism  in  the  discussions  of  all  questions  affected  by  sense  percep- 
tion. The  whole  transcendental  world  of  "things  in  themselves" 
represented  what  was  entirely  "  unknown"  and  "  unknowable."  Its 
existence  was  admitted  as  a  fact,  but  the  belief  of  it  was  left  unjusti- 
fied. In  his  earliest  conception  of  it  he  assumed  that  it  acted  causally 
on  the  mind  but  in  spite  of  this  was  still  "unknown."  Later  he 
withdrew  the  statements  in  which  this  causal  action  was  admitted  or 
asserted  and  left  the  existence  of  "  things  in  themselves  "  unsupported 
by  any  evidence  in  fact  or  reason.  "  Phenomena"  were  all  that  could 
be  "  known."  Following  the  Cartesian  assumptions  about  "  con- 
sciousness "  and  the  Leibnitzian  assumption  denying  all  reciprocity  or 
interaction  between  the  monads,  between  mind  and  matter,  unless  we 
accept  the  "  receptivity  "  of  sense,  and  thus  denying  the  possibility  of 
"knowing"  the  transcendental  "  reality,"  Kant  thus  defined  by  indi- 
rection what  he  meant  by  "  knowledge,"  namely,  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness. "Knowing"  was  having  a  fact  in  consciousness,  or- 
simply  unifying  it  with  other  similar  facts.  That  "  knowing"  should 
be  such  a  thing  as  "  perceiving"  an  object  not  in  consciousness  at  all, 
or  affirming  with  certitude  and  unqualified  right  to  believe  the  existence 
of  any  "reality"  transcending  sensation,  if  fact  and  the  inalterable 
laws  of  thought  necessitated  it,  seems  not  to  have  entered  his  mind,  at 
least  in  so  far  as  his  manner  of  expression  is  concerned.  "  Knowl- 
edge "  was  simply  having  facts  of  consciousness  and  systemizing  them 
and  their  relations  in  terms  of  the  "  categories,"  whose  functions  as 
laws  of  thought  never  availed  to  enable  Kant  to  solve  any  of  the 
sceptical  problems  elicited  by  the  asserted  phenomenality  of  experi- 
ence. Those  problems  seem  to  have  been  largely  misconceived, 
and  the  logical  distinctions  adopted  for  discussing  them  only  ob- 
scured the  issues  or  indicated  a  position  in  which  it  was  impossible  to 
decide  on  which  side  of  a  question  Kant  really  was.  There  is  no 
adequate  definition  and  explanation  of  fundamental  concepts,  such  as 
phenomenon  (Erscheinung),  intuition  ( Anschauung) ,  experience 
(  Erf  aiming),  knowledge  (Erkenntniss),  perception  ( Wahrnehmung)  , 
conception  (Begriff),  form  and  matter  (Form  and  Materie)  and  a  host 
of  others.  He  uses  no  illustrations  of  fact  whatever,  except  the  one 
famous  instance  of  the  boat  sailing  down  stream,  and  the  bullet  on  the 
pillow.      On  the  issues  of  realism  and  idealism  he  is  not  intelligible,  as 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  1 5 

he  seems  not  to  know  even  what  they  were  and  are.  On  the  whole 
the  entire  movement  which  he  initiated  seems  to  have  had  no  clear 
message  whatever  for  philosophy.  It  had  finally  eliminated  the  last 
three  problems  which  were  supposed  to  constitute  the  field  of  meta- 
physics, and  with  them  the  whole  transcendental  world,  the  superphysi- 
cal  world  of  antiquity,  and  then  tried  to  juggle  with  the  concept  of 
"  metaphysics  "  without  adjusting  itself  to  science  when  in  fact  its  pro- 
cedure had  left  no  other  legitimate  field  of  interest.  It  became  so 
enamored  of  "  phenomena  of  consciousness  "  that  it  could  not  devote 
itself  to  science,  and  its  agnosticism  on  God,  Immortality  and  Freedom 
made  it  impossible  to  satisfy  religion  by  any  discussion  of  its  philo- 
sophic problems.  The  consequence  is  that  it  wanders  about  in  a 
maudlin  intermundia  between  science  and  religion,  using  an  orthodox 
language  with  a  heterodox  content  on  every  question  where  intelligible 
speech  is  a  duty  and  a  necessity. 

This  characterization  does  not  deny  the  fact  that,  when  interpreted 
in  intelligible  terms,  this  modern  idealistic  tendency  initiated  by  Kant 
and  his  school  is  profoundly  true  in  its  essential  conceptions.  But  its 
truth  needs  to  be  expressed  in  the  vernacular  which  will  give  it  the 
currency  and  power  which  philosophy  is  capable  of  possessing  and 
which  is  due  its  claims  as  the  legatee  of  the  highest  knowledge.  All 
that  I  wish  to  indicate  by  complaint  and  criticism  against  its  obscur- 
ities and  evasions  is  that  its  equivocal  position  on  the  fundamental 
problems  of  human  thought  and  its  indifference  to  science  and  scien- 
tific method  deprives  it  of  the  heritage  to  which  it  lay  so  persistent  a 
claim.  It  should  recognize  the  extremely  complicated  nature  of  the 
general  conceptions  with  which  it  deals  and  endeavor  to  first  give  them 
the  analysis  and  definition  which  are  the  primary  requisites  to  a  clear 
understanding  of  its  discussions  and  attitude  on  the  issues  which  the 
mental  and  moral  problems  of  the  age  force  upon  it.  It  is  not  enough 
to  acclaim  idealism  and  repudiate  realism,  or  even  to  reconcile  them. 
These  conceptions  are  both  of  them  charged  with  too  large  a  history 
and  represent  too  general  abstractions  to  be  self-interpreting.  They 
embody  relations  to  many  distinct  problems,  each  of  them  as  equivocal 
and  complex  as  the  doctrines  which  they  are  supposed  to  elucidate. 
Hence  we  cannot  take  for  granted  that  we  are  making  progress  by 
simply  repeating  the  shibboleths  of  any  particular  theory  without 
studying  its  incidents  and  relations  to  the  practical  and  intellectual 
problems  of  the  age.  A  theory  has  value  in  proportion  to  its  ability 
to  explicate  minutias  of  human  life  as  well  as  describe  in  abstract  out- 
lines the  general  movement  of  thought. 


1 6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Let  us  summarize  the  result  of  this  introductory  analysis.  It  can 
be  done  by  briefly  characterizing  the  different  stages  of  human  reflec- 
tion. The  three  stages  into  which  we  have  divided  the  history  that 
has  passed  under  review  had  their  various  problems  and  interests. 
The  ethical  and  religious  questions  were  integral  elements  of  their 
speculations,  even  though  the  primary  impulse  was  purely  scientific  or 
philosophical.  The  various  interests  of  life  are  so  articulated  that 
knowledge  in  any  one  department  of  inquiry  inevitably  influences  all 
others  in  some  degree.  Ancient  thought  began  its  speculations  in  cos- 
mological  questions.  These  concerned  the  "origin"  of  the  visible 
and  tangible  world.  It  was  not  the  "  origin"  of  it  by  any  process  of 
creation,  but  its  "  origin  "  from  elements.  Existence  as  it  was  known 
was  conceived  as  a  compound  made  up  of  simple  elements.  Efficient 
causes  were  not  the  primary  object  of  inquiry,  but  mainly  material 
causes.  The  conclusion  of  the  philosopher  was  that  the  sensible  world 
was  made  out  of  supersensible  elements,  but  still  of  matter  the  same  in 
kind  as  its  compounds.  It  affected  the  religious  consciousness  only  when 
it  developed  into  the  denial  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  as  in  Epicu- 
reanism, which  in  this  issue  defined  the  controversy  between  Greek  and 
Christian  thought  in  its  metaphysical  aspects.  But  on  its  psychologi- 
cal and  ethical  sides  the  controversy  in  Greek  thought  was  between 
sensationalism  and  intellectualism,  between  the  sensuous  and  the  con- 
templative life,  between  vulgarity  and  culture.  In  Christian  periods 
this  antithesis  was  expressed  in  the  opposition  between  the  carnal  and 
the  spiritual  life.  In  modern  thought,  after  having  eliminated  the 
problems  of  metaphysics  as  understood  in  mediaeval  thought  and  hav- 
ing concentrated  interest  on  the  psychological  and  epistemological  issues 
the  controversy  turns  about  the  relative  ethical  values  of  sensory  and 
intellectual  objects  again.  Consequently  we  may  summarily  char- 
acterize the  general  movements  of  the  different  periods  in  the  follow- 
ing manner.  Greek  thought  was  governed  by  an  ethical  motive  when 
it  was  not  occupied  with  cosmological  questions  and  represented  the 
opposition  between  sensationalism  and  intellectualism.  Christian 
thought  was  primarily  governed  by  the  metaphysical  question  as  a 
condition  of  the  ethical  and  religious,  and  represented  the  antithesis 
between  materialism  and  spiritualism.  Modern  thought  having  rele- 
gated metaphysics  into  the  limbo  of  the  unknown  represents  the  con- 
troversy between  realism  and  idealism.  This  does  not  coincide  exactly 
with  either  of  the  others  in  its  appearance,  although  advocates  of  one 
side  love  to  make  us  believe  that  it  is  more  or  less  a  combination  of  the 
two  movements  in  one.     The  idealist  tries  to  make  us  believe  that  his 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  1 7 

position  is  opposed  to  materialism,  but  he  assumes  the  coincidence  and 
identity  of  sensationalism  and  materialism  which  is  neither  historically 
nor  philosophically  true.  Idealism  had  its  origin  in  epistemological 
considerations,  and  so  did  realism.  Materialism  had  its  origin  in 
metaphysical  questions  and  so  did  spiritualism.  One  concerns  the 
problems  of  "  knowledge,"  the  other  the  problems  of  "  reality."  One 
asks  how  I  "  know  reality,"  the  other  what  is  the  "  nature  of  reality." 
Hence  I  must  insist  that,  if  there  is  any  relation  between  modern  and 
ancient  thought  in  the  antitheses  that  I  have  indicated,  it  is  the  appar- 
ent connection  at  least  between  the  problem  of  realism  and  idealism 
and  that  between  sensationalism  and  intellectualism.  They  at  least 
partly  coincide.  But  as  I  am  not  interested  in  defining  their  relation 
in  detail,  but  only  in  expressing  the  differences  between  their  motives, 
both  of  which  were  ethical  rather  than  metaphysical,  while  that  of 
reflective  Christianity  was  primarily  metaphysical  and  then  ethical,  I 
may  pass  by  all  other  questions  in  the  comparison.  We  see  then  that 
each  intellectual  movement  had  its  own  distinctive  way  of  conceiving 
its  problems  and  interests  corresponding  to  them. 


CHAPTER   II. 
GENERAL   PROBLEMS   OF   SCIENCE   AND    PHILOSOPHY.1 

Ancient  thought  made  no  distinction  between  science  and  philos- 
ophy. They  were  regarded  as  the  same,  and  it  is  only  the  gradually 
developed  difference  of  their  fields  at  their  outer  limits  that  has  enabled 
us  to  distinguish  them  to-day.  For  there  is  a  point  at  which  they  more 
or  less  interpenetrate.  But  as  philosophy,  conservative  of  its  traditions, 
is  either  mainly  reflective,  speculative  and  critical,  or  receives  its  pri- 
mary impulse  from  the  study  of  mental  phenomena,  while  science  is 
more  generally  associated  with  the  study  of  physical  nature,  the  con- 
ception of  the  two  inquiries  is  affected  by  these  considerations.  But 
whether  their  differences  are  of  method,  of  field,  or  of  attitude  on  the 
various  problems  of  human  interest,  they  are  so  articulated  that  a  com- 
prehensive view  of  intellectual  problems  is  impossible  without  exhibit- 
ing their  interrelations.  They  are  both  of  them  attempts  to  ascertain  the 
rationale  of  things  and  hence  proceed  on  the  same  general  lines.  Their 
problems  may  not  always  coincide,  but  their  principles  are  the  same. 
Hence  we  may  well  link  them  together  in  the  endeavor  to  elucidate 
the  questions  that  excite  human  curiosity. 

The  primary  impulse  to  human  inquiry  is  the  desire  to  have  the 
"  explanation  "  of  a  fact.  "  Explanation  "  may  be  an  equivocal  term, 
as  it  undoubtedly  is,  and  may  involve  various  expedients  or  alternative 
ways  of  looking  at  facts  in  order  to  satisfy  curiosity,  but  in  all  of  its 
meanings  it  comprehends  the  conception  of  some  other  fact,  real  or 
supposed,  that  enables  us  to  accept  the  first  as  a  matter  of  course  and 
that  removes  our  fear,  our  wonder,  our  confusion  or  our  suspicion  of 
irregularity  in  the  occurrence  of  events.  "  Explanation,"  however,  in  its 
full  extension,  comprehends  variously  the  satisfaction  of  the  demand  for 
the  "  law,"  the  "  cause,"  the  "  nature,"  and  the  "  purpose  "  of  events. 

'A  part  of  this  chapter  is  a  revision  of  an  article  published  on  the  same  sub- 
ject in  the  Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  XII.,  p.  386.  I  have  made  some  changes, 
but  none  that  are  important  except  in  the  case  of  the  terms  (etiological  and 
noumcnological.  I  have  simply  interchanged  these  terms,  using  in  this  book 
"  aetiological "  where  I  had  used  "  noumenological "  in  the  article,  and  vice 
versa.  I  have  not  changed  the  conceptions  involved,  but  only  the  terms  for 
denominating  them,  as  I  thought  the  present  usage  was  truer  to  historical  ideas 
and  would  thus  represent  the  discussion  in  a  clearer  light. 
iS 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  19 

There  arises  in  connection  with  inquiries  to  satisfy  these  demands  the 
further  question  regarding  the  grounds  or  reasons  for  belief  in  any  of 
these  matters,  including  the  processes  by  which  belief  is  effected. 
This  may  be  called  the  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  as  distinct  from  that 
of  the  things  known  or  believed.  There  are  thus  four  general  prob- 
lems in  science  and  philosophy,  or  human  inquiry.  They  are  prompted 
by  the  corresponding  questions  regarding  any  event  or  thing,  "  What 
causes  it?"  "  What  is  it?"  "  Why  is  it?"  and  "  How  do  we  know  it?" 
I  use  the  term  "  why  "  here  to  indicate  the  question  regarding  the  pur- 
pose of  a  fact.  It  is  no  doubt  elastic  enough  to  involve  an  inquiry  for 
the  cause  and  the  nature  of  facts  as  well  as  their  purpose,  but  for  the 
sake  of  brevity  in  stating  the  questions  I  limit  its  import  for  the  present 
to  the  one  problem.     I  may  classify  them  as  follows  : 

f  Ratio  essendi.  Material  cause.  Constitution.  Nature. 

Prohlp    <;   J  Rat'°  fiendi.  Efficient  cause.  Producer.  Agent. 

I  Ratio  agendi.  Final  cause.  Purpose.  End. 

L  Ratio  cognoscendi.  Logical  cause.  Evidence.  Reason. 

All  of  these  are  various  forms  of  "  explanation."  But  they  repre- 
sent different  intellectual  interests.  The  ratio  essendi  indicates  what 
an  event  or  thing  z'.y,and  this  is  usually  done  either  by  explicitly  stating 
its  qualities  or  classifying  it,  which  is  a  way  of  implicitly  indicating 
its  qualities.  In  Greek  speculation,  however,  it  would  not  always  take 
this  form,  but  would  be  an  assignment  of  a  thing's  composition.  A 
thing  would  be  what  it  was  made  of,  the  elements  of  which  it  was 
composed.  This  way  of  viewing  a  reality  would  characterize  every 
stage  of  thought  which  endeavored  to  determine  the  nature  of  reality 
by  referring  to  its  component  elements.  But  classification  must  rely 
upon  the  qualities  which  define  and  distinguish  things  and  so  all  re- 
flection that  unifies  phenomena  and  things  by  classification  must  express 
the  "  material"  cause  or  nature  of  events  or  things  by  their  qualities, 
which  constitute  them,  not  necessarily  as  elements  after  atomic  anal- 
ogies, but  as  characteristics  which  indicate  what  their  "  nature"  is. 
We  may  assume,  however,  that  either  alternative  for  determining  the 
M  nature"  of  a  thing  is  permissible,  composition  or  comparison,  ac- 
cording to  the  way  in  which  we  wish  to  view  phenomena  and  things. 
We  may  wish  to  inquire  into  the  composition  of  realities  where  we 
suppose  that  the  complex  wholes  are  the  same  in  essential  properties 
as  the  elements,  or  we  may  wish  to  engage  in  comparison  of  realities 
where  "nature"  is  convertible  with  qualities  possessed  or  not  pos- 
sessed rather  than  elements  in  composition.     Hence  the  ratio  essendi 


20  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  modern  thought  may  apply  to  the  determination  of  properties  instead 
of  elements.  The  ratio  Jiendi  is  the  active  or  initiating  cause  of  things 
or  events.  It  represents  any  fact  or  thing  which  is  supposed  to  initiate 
change,  whether  it  be  the  movement  of  a  simple  element  in  space  or 
time,  or  the  arrangement  of  elements  to  form  a  composite  or  organic 
whole,  a  cosmos.  It  answers  the  question  demanding  the  knowledge 
of  what  it  is  that  initiates  or  produces  any  complex  and  organic  indi- 
vidual, or  any  change  in  the  action  of  either  simple  or  composite  indi- 
viduals. The  ratio  agendi  explains  itself  as  the  purpose  of  things  or 
events,  the  end  toward  which  any  fact  or  system  of  facts  tends  to  move. 
The  ratio  cognoscendi  is  a  little  unique  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  wholly 
distinct  from  the  other  three  rationes,  at  least  in  respect  of  the  subject 
matter  with  which  it  deals.  It  is  the  term  for  what  I  shall  call  scien- 
tific method,  or  the  process  by  which  conviction  is  established  in  regard 
to  conclusions  in  any  field  of  inquiry,  whether  it  regard  the  facts  which 
demand  the  various  causes  in  explanation  of  them,  or  the  evidence  of 
the  causes  themselves.  It  therefore  represents  the  evidential  aspect 
of  every  problem  before  speculation,  and  hence  is  specifically  the  epis- 
temological  problem.  It  covers  the  field  of  conviction  and  not  that  of 
explanation.  It  does  not  offer  a  ground  for  the  existence  of  events 
and  things,  but  only  of  knowledge  and  belief  regarding  them  and  their 
causes. 

In  dealing  with  these  various  problems  I  have  assumed  that  the 
facts  on  which  the  demand  for  explanation  is  based  are  known  or  ac- 
cepted as  given.  I  have  not  assumed  that  there  is  any  problem  re- 
garding their  existence.  It  is  true,  however,  that  certain  "  facts"  are 
as  much  the  result  of  inquiry  as  are  explanations.  But  the  inquiry  in 
regard  to  the  existence  of  "  facts,"  by  which  I  mean  to  include  events 
and  things,  is  regulated  by  the  ratio  cognoscendi  alone.  This  is  pre- 
liminary to  asking  any  other  question  about  them,  the  answer  to  which 
involves  the  evidential  as  well  as  the  explanatory  method.  But  pass- 
ing all  minor  questions  aside,  prior  to  matters  of  explanation  and  fol- 
lowing the  problem  of  mere  ' '  facts  "  as  unrelated  objects  of  observa- 
tion there  is  another  problem  of  some  importance  which  is  associated 
very  closely  with  the  simple  occurrence  of  "  facts."  It  is  the  law  of 
events  or  things.  We  are  not  satisfied  with  the  mere  occurrence  of 
events  or  phenomena,  but  we  seek  to  know  the  law  of  that  occurrence. 
This  term  "  law"  is  variously  interpreted.  Sometimes  it  refers  to  the 
u  conditions  "  of  an  event's  occurrence.  Now  '*  conditions  "  is  a  term 
that  is  equivocal.  It  may  denote  either  an  active  cause  of  events  or  the 
passive  and  invariable  concomitant  of  them.     In  my  own  conception 


PROBLEMS   OF  SCIENCE  AND   PHILOSOPHY.  21 

however,  law  does  not  properly  express  "conditions"  of  any  kind, 
but  only  regularity.  The  idea  of  causality,  whether  static  or  dynamic, 
has  no  right  to  association  with  it.  It  is  but  a  name  for  the  constancy 
of  events  or  regular  order,  the  uniformity  of  coexistence  and  sequence. 
This  is  a  problem  in  science  and  philosophy  quite  as  much  as  ex- 
planation. But  it  is  not  causal  explanation  of  any  kind.  It  is  sub- 
ordinate and  prior  to  this.  Its  place  in  the  more  complete  classifica- 
tion of  intellectual  problems  will  be  ascertained  in  the  further  analysis 
and  discussion  of  the  various  questions  involved  in  science  and  philos- 
ophy. It  suffices  to  note  at  present  that  the  uniformity  of  events  is  as 
much  a  matter  of  inquiry  as  the  fact  and  causes  of  their  occurrence. 

This  general  analysis  of  problems  prepares  us  to  give  a  more 
definite  and  somewhat  different  classification  of  them.  As  the  ratio 
cognoscendi  problem  is  a  general  one,  covering  the  question  of  con- 
viction in  all  others,  it  need  not  serve  as  a  basis  of  any  system  of 
sciences,  and  consequently  I  shall  determine  the  analysis  of  intellectual 
problems  by  the  objects  associated  with  the  quest  for  truth,  whether 
it  be  for  events,  for  laws,  for  ideals  or  for  causes.  After  this  more 
definite  delimitation  of  our  problems  we  shall  be  prepared  to  take  up 
directly  the  definite  questions  of  epistemology  and  metaphysics. 

The  best  way  to  delimit  the  questions  which  we  have  to  consider 
is  by  means  of  what  may  be  indifferently  called  a  classification  of  the 
sciences  or  a  classification  of  the  problems  of  science  and  philosophy. 
I  invoke  both  forms  of  expression  because  I  wish  to  appropriate  the 
ideas  at  the  basis  of  both  conceptions.  That  is,  I  am  not  classifying 
the  sciences  for  the  sake  of  the  classification  only,  but  because  of  the 
distinction  of  problems  which  I  wish  to  make.  Usually  classifications 
have  proceeded  on  the  assumption  of  territorial  distinctions,  but  I  wish 
to  include  other  considerations  in  the  determination  of  their  definition, 
and  this  distinction  is  the  idea  of  problems  as  well  as  territory.  In 
fact  territory  will  be  a  subordinate  matter  of  consideration.  Objects 
to  be  attained  are  a  better  criterion  of  the  distinctions  involved  in  sci- 
entific and  philosophical  questions,  though  territory  is  often  nothing 
more  than  a  subterfuge  for  these. 

The  circumstance  which  has  prompted  men  generally  to  classify 
the  sciences  has  been  the  discovery  that  they  are  in  some  way  related 
to  each  other.  For  example,  logic  and  psychology  have  both  to  do 
with  mental  phenomena.  But  one  of  them,  logic,  has  a  much  nar- 
rower field  than  the  other,  psychology,  and  at  the  same  time  also  has 
a  different  problem  before  itself.  It  has  to  do  with  the  ratiocinative 
process  and  seeks  to  determine  the  laws  of  its  validity,  while  psychol- 


22  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ogy  is  not  necessarily  concerned  with  the  validity  of  any  mental  acts, 
but  may  content  itself  with  the  determination  of  their  laws  and  causes, 
while  it  also  investigates  more  than  the  ratiocinative  process  and  so 
will  include  perception,  emotion  and  volition.  Again  sociology  is  in 
some  way  closely  connected  with  history,  economics  and  politics. 
Mechanics  is  often  treated  as  a  department  of  physics.  Geology  is 
generally  assumed  to  be  a  branch  of  the  same.  Chemistry  is  some- 
times treated  as  coordinate  with  physics  and  sometimes  as  a  division 
of  it.  Such  relations  suggest  a  hierarchy  of  sciences  and  have  given 
rise  to  their  classification. 

If  I  were  concerned  in  the  acceptance  of  some  classifications  and 
the  rejection  of  others,  it  might  be  profitable  to  undertake  a  review  of 
some  of  them,  but  as  it  is  possible  to  assign  at  least  a  relative  value  to 
all  consistent  classifications  it  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  an  invidious 
task  or  to  study  the  work  of  the  past  with  a  view  to  repudiating  it. 
But  I  shall  refer  to  two  systems  of  classification,  partly  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  this  relative  justification  and  partly  for  appropriating  the 
general  principles  at  the  basis  of  both  of  them.  They  are  the  classifi- 
cations of  Comte  and  Spencer. 

Comte's  system  may  be  called  the  serial  method  of  classifying  the 
sciences  because  it  was  not  his  purpose  to  represent  them  in  the  rela- 
tion of  genus  and  species,  but  to  conceive  some  of  them  in  a  relation 
of  dependence  upon  others.  He  did  not  attempt  any  complete  and 
exhaustive  consideration  of  the  special  fields  of  human  inquiry.  He 
confined  himself  to  the  more  general  sciences  and  their  relation  to  the 
problems  which  mainly  occupied  his  mind  as  a  student  of  politics  or 
sociology,  omitting  those  which  had  originated  and  sustained  a  phil- 
osophic interest.  After  recognizing  the  two  fields  of  phenomena, 
organic  and  inorganic,  he  adopts  the  following  as  the  order  of  relation 
between  the  general  sciences :  mathematics,  astronomy,  physics, 
chemistry,  physiology,  and  social  physics  (sociology) .  He  makes 
also  the  distinction  between  the  abstract  and  concrete  sciences  which 
Spencer  afterward  adopts,  but  he  does  not  make  the  use  of  it  which 
Spencer  finds  appropriate.  It  is  interesting  to  remark,  however,  that 
Comte,  for  obvious  reasons,  makes  no  mention  of  philosophy,  meta- 
physics, or  psychology.  He  conceived  these  as  pseudo-scientific  and 
would  recognize  nothing  but  what  he  regarded  as  legitimate  fields  of 
inquiry,  he  himself  being  the  sole  judge  of  what  man  should  study. 
But  in  thus  excluding  certain  problems  from  consideration  with  which 
men  have  actually  occupied  themselves,  and  in  not  specifying  problems 
within  the  limits  of  the  sciences  which  he  does  recognize,  he  has  given 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND   PHILOSOPHY.  23 

a  very  meager  conception  of  the  real  interests  of  the  human  mind, 
legitimate  or  illegitimate,  though  the  serial  method  of  viewing  the 
relations  of  the  sciences  is  a  most  fruitful  conception  and  capable  of 
useful  application.  It  shows  both  a  kind  of  dependence  of  one  science 
upon  another  and  an  incremental  result  in  the  dependent  science  which 
is  important  for  attaining  some  idea  of  the  progressive  complexity  of 
nature  and  knowledge. 

Spencer  adopts  what  may  be  called  the  logical  method  of  classi- 
fication. It  is  a  division  of  the  sciences  into  genus  and  species,  and 
applies  the  principle  of  territory,  in  the  main  at  least,  as  the  ground 
of  distinction  between  them.  His  classification  is  carried  out  with 
reasonable  clearness  and  consistency  in  detail.  It  is  far  more  ex- 
haustive of  the  fields  of  human  inquiry  than  most  efforts  of  the  kind 
and  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  conceived  is  as  useful  as  any 
other  system.  Accepting  the  fundamental  principle  of  division,  which 
is  territory,  and  the  distinction  between  abstract,  concrete,  and  ab- 
stract-concrete sciences,  I  would  have  no  special  criticisms  to  make 
against  the  classification,  as  I  have  already  recognized  the  relative 
value  of  any  consistent  system  of  classification,  as  judged  by  the  pur- 
pose for  which  it  is  made.  But  I  do  not  think  that  the  fundamental 
distinction  between  abstract,  concrete,  and  abstract-concrete  expresses 
the  real  nature  of  the  difference  between  the  sciences  in  respect  of  the 
problems  which  they  actually  attack.  This,  I  think,  is  apparent  from 
the  place  occupied  in  it  by  logic  and  mathematics.  Their  classification 
as  coordinate  species  ought  to  imply  a  closer  relation  in  subject  matter 
than  actually  exists.  It  is  like  classifying  foods  under  the  heads  of 
"  animal,  vegetable,  and  animal-vegetable."  This  is  all  very  possible, 
but  does  not  indicate  any  truly  scientific  principle  of  distinction. 
Besides,  we  could  as  well  put  ethics  under  the  head  of  "  abstract" 
sciences  as  logic  and  mathematics.  I  think  that  it  will  be  found  that 
ethics  is  quite  as  formal  a  science  as  logic  and  when  compared  with 
the  practical  problems  which  it  is  expected  to  solve  will  appear  quite 
as  "  abstract."  Many  will  question  Spencer's  right  to  make  sociology 
a  subordinate  division  of  psychology,  as  mental  states  are  not  pri- 
marily social  phenomena  at  all.  They  simply  happen  to  include  these 
as  a  part  of  the  class,  so  that  it  would  be  more  rational  to  make 
sociology  an  incremental  science.  But  I  do  not  care  to  be  punctilious, 
as  I  wish  to  recognize  what  Spencer  rightly  sees.  It  is  the  fact 
which  Comte's  serial  classification  observed,  namely,  that  sociology 
depends  on  certain  psychological  functions  and  phenomena  for  its 
meanings.     But  he  did  not  observe  that,  as  actually  studied,  it  deals 


24  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

also  with  a  wholly  distinct  set  of  phenomena  in  the  field  of  politics, 
history,  and  economics.  If  the  meaning  of  sociology  be  determined 
by  the  principle  of  division  adopted  by  Spencer,  as  it  ought  to  be  in 
the  system,  there  would  be  less  objection  to  its  place  assigned  it,  but 
the  term  would  not  have  the  meaning  which  students  actually  give  it 
and  which  Spencer's  own  discussion  of  it  in  his  Synthetic  Philosophy 
assumed.  Spencer's  difficulty,  and  hence  liability  to  objection,  arose 
out  of  his  attempt  to  give  a  classification  which  would  satisfy  two  in- 
compatible conditions  at  the  same  time,  namely,  an  ideal  and  actual 
conception  of  the  sciences.  The  manner  in  which  the  conception  of 
the  various  sciences  has  developed  prevents  this  from  being  accom- 
plished. One  or  the  other  alternative  must  be  adhered  to.  The 
classification  must  be  avowedly  ideal  or  avowedly  of  the  actual  con- 
ception of  the  sciences  and  territorial  and  problematical  considerations 
must  not  be  confused. 

Now  what  I  wish  here  to  undertake  is  a  combination  of  the  objects 
indicated  by  the  systems  of  Comte  and  Spencer,  namely,  a  logical  and 
serial  classification  of  the  sciences,  or  problems  of  human  thought  and 
action,  in  a  manner  that  will  recognize  both  territorial  and  relational 
facts  at  the  same  time.  It  will  involve  a  complex  system  of  connec- 
tions and  distinctions  which  have,  no  doubt,  operated  in  any  other  way 
of  looking  at  the  question  of  classification  to  cause  the  real  or  apparent 
confusion  of  conception  and  definition.  The  important  premisory 
remark,  however,  to  be  made  at  the  outset,  as  a  precaution  against  mis- 
understanding, is  that  the  classification  is  based,  not  on  any  definite 
conception  of  the  sciences  as  actually  defined  in  general  acceptance  or 
usage,  but  on  what  the  conceptions  must  be  as  determined  by  the 
principle  of  devision  adopted.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  define  the  sciences 
or  to  classify  them  as  their  territory  is  defined,  but  as  it  ought  to  be 
in  an  ideal  system  endeavoring  to  indicate  what  the  problems  have 
been  in  the  abstract.  At  the  same  time,  I  mean  to  have  no  quarrel 
with  the  accepted  import  of  the  terms  as  they  have  been  historically 
developed.  These  may  be  granted  their  rights  and  uses  where  it  is 
impossible  to  regulate  the  tendencies  of  evolution  arbitrarily  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  personal  theory.  We  may  define  our  problems  clearly  and 
then  allow  human  interests  to  carry  on  the  discussion  of  them  in  their 
own  way  according  to  the  actual  complications  of  phenomena.  Hence 
the  classification,  so  far  as  mere  terms  are  concerned,  may  be  treated 
as  false,  when  measured  by  the  actual  conception  of  the  sciences,  or 
we  may  assume  that  actual  definitions  are  wrong  according  to  the  ideal 
classification.     I  do  not  care  which  of  these  is  done,  if  only  the  system 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  25 

succeeds  in  throwing  light  upon  the  problems  of  human  intellect, 
either  by  suggesting  their  variation  from  the  ideal  of  thought  or  by 
opening  up  a  way  to  reconcile  the  controversies  that  have  spent  more 
time  on  definition  than  the  philosophical  and  practical  interests  of  men 
justify. 

I  think  we  may  reduce  the  fields  of  human  reflective  ( and  active  in- 
terest to  three,,  in  the  widest  acceptance  of  the  terms.  I  shall  call  them 
the  world  of  events,  the  world  of  worths,  and  the  world  of  causes. 
This  is,  in  expression  at  least,  a  slight  modification  of  the  division  of 
Lotze,  which  was  the  world  of  facts,  the  world  of  laws,  and  the 
world  of  worths.  The  world  of  events  which  I  have  adopted  for  the 
first  class  of  problems  is  coincident  with  Lotze's  world  of  "  facts," 
and  I  discard  the  term  "  facts,"  not  because  I  have  any  objection  to  its 
Lotzian  use,  but  because  I  wish  to  regard  the  world  of  "laws"  as  in- 
cluded in  that  of  "  facts  "  and  to  be  subject  to  the  same  explanation  as 
isolated  "facts"  or  events.  The  very  conception  of  "  law  "  which 
was  taken  above  indicates  that  it  does  not  express  anything  but  regu- 
larity of  events  and  belongs  to  the  same  category  of  problems  as  un- 
systematized incidents.  All  three  worlds  as  I  conceive  them  are  to  be 
equally  treated  as  "  facts"  in  the  wider  sense  of  the  term,  and  differ 
only  in  respect  of  the  method  of  determining  them  or  in  respect  to  the 
tenacity  of  belief  regarding  them.  The  worlds  of  "  worths "  and 
"  causes  "  explain  themselves. 

In  the  first  of  the  fields  thus  circumscribed  we  wish  merely  to 
ascertain  what  the  "events"  or  occurrences  are  which  we  have  to 
observe  and  systematize.  I  shall  describe  this  field  as  the  Phenotneno- 
logical  problem.  Explanation  may  be  excluded  from  it,  in  fact,  must 
be,  as  its  object  is  only  to  determine  the  facts  of  existence-  I  shall 
subdivide  this  phenomenological  field  into  two  classes  of  subordinate 
problems,  which  I  shall  call  the  Ergological  and  the  Nomological.  I 
have  been  obliged  to  coin  the  word  '  ergological '  for  the  purpose 
of  distinguishing  the  question  of  the  laws  of  events  from  the  bare  fact 
of  their  occurrence  and  unsystematic  apprehension.  I  might  have 
adopted  the  term  '  pragmatological,'  but,  on  the  whole,  seeing  that 
the  Greek  term  to.  k'pya  was  used  to  express  facts,  things  done  or  doing, 
I  decided  for  the  former.  It  is  intended  to  express  the  nature  of  the 
first  problem  of  human  interest,  namely,  the  mere  knowledge  of  the 
events  which  suggest,  when  known,  the  subsequent  problems  still  to 
be  considered.  The  nomological  problem  represents  the  demand  for 
the  laws  of  events,  the  systematic  order  of  their  occurrence,  the  deter- 
mination of  the  coexistences  and  sequences  of  phenomena,  as  distinct 


to 


26  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

from  their  causes.  Superficially,  phenomena  may  seem  to  occur  with- 
out order,  and  hence  that  order  has  to  be  a  quest  whenever  it  is 
not  apparent  at  first.  Ergological  and  nomological  problems,  there- 
fore, represent  two  distinct  fields  of  inquiry  which  can  be  further  con- 
sidered in  the  serial  relation  of  the  sciences  occupied  with  them. 

I  shall  describe  the  world  of  worths  as  representing  the  ideological 
problem.  By  this  I  mean  the  general  field  of  ideals.  The  origin  of 
the  term  and  this  conception  of  it  are  apparent  without  further  com- 
ment. That  such  a  field  or  problem  exists  is  admitted  without  ques- 
tion. But  I  shall  subdivide  it  into  two  subordinate  types  of  problems 
which  I  shall  call  the  Orthological  and  the  Teleological.  One  refers 
to  the  ideals  of  truth  and  the  other  to  those  of  action.  By  the  ortho- 
logical  problems  I  mean  the  questions  of  norms  or  criteria  of  values 
in  every  field  of  human  interest.  By  the  teleological  problems  I  mean 
the  questions  of  means  to  ends  which  may  be  either  ideally  or  actually 
adopted  for  action.  In  general  they  represent  the  field  of  the  arts  as 
distinct  from  the  sciences.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  de- 
scribe them  as  referring  to  both  ends  and  means,  as  these  are  corre- 
lated conceptions. 

The  world  of  causes  I  shall  describe  as  the  Noumenological  prob- 
lem. I  use  the  term  to  comprehend  both  efficient  and  material  causes, 
and  accordingly  divide  its  subordinate  problems  into  the  ^Etiological 
and  the  Ontological.  The  term  is  borrowed  from  the  usage  of  Kant, 
as  is  apparent,  but  has  not  exactly  the  same  import  and  implications. 
The  special  meaning  of  the  term  and  the  reason  for  the  use  of  it  are 
found  in  the  fact  that  we  need  some  expression  for  the  mind's  habit  of 
seeking  something  that  "  transcends  "  the  phenomenon  to  be  explained, 
something  that  is  not  given  in  it  though  implied  by  it,  and  that  may 
be  of  a  different  kind  from  that  whose  explanation  or  ground  of  occur- 
rence is  to  be  determined.  Besides  it  is  intended  to  express  something 
more  than  "  law."     This  will  be  apparent  in  the  sequel  of  this  work. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  this  last  class  of  problems,  the  noumenologi- 
cal, to  assume  that  the  field  is  a  legitimate  one.  So  far  as  the  classifi- 
cation and  general  questions  are  concerned  we  may  admit  with  Comte 
that  metaphysics  or  inquiries  transcending  events  and  their  laws  is  not 
a  legitimate  subject  of  human  curiosity.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  men  have 
indulged  speculation  and  inquiries  which  they  have  chosen  to  denomi- 
nate as  the  world- of  causes,  or  facts  and  realities  other  than  mere  phe- 
nomena. All  that  the  classification  requires  to  recognize  is  that  men 
have  been  curious  to  ascertain  the  existence  of  certain  realities  which 
they  have  supposed  to  be  supported  by  the  evidence  and  meaning  of 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND   PHILOSOPHY. 


27 


phenomena.  With  this  proviso  as  to  the  interpretation  admissible 
regarding  the  third  class  of  problems  I  may  proceed  to  the  tabular 
representation  of  the  problems  of  science  and  philosophy. 


Classification  of  the   Sciences,    or  Problems   of   Science  and 
Philosophy. 


tf£ 


v>*Vs 


c 

D  

E  Anthropology 

F  

G  

H  Relig.  Annals. 

I  Pol.  Annals 

J 


Nomological.     j     Orthological. 


Ideological. 


Mathematics 

Physics 

Chemistry 

Physiology 

Psychology 


Ethology 
Sci.  Relig. 
Sociology 


Noumenological. 


Hygiene 
Epistemology 
^Esthetics 
Deontology 


Jurisprudence 


Engineering 

Pharmacy 

Therapeutics 

Pedagogy 

Art 

Prattology 


Politics 

M 


Metrology 
Hylology 

Biology  (?)  Jj 

Pneumatology  {i>jJ  bf*A™ 


Theology 


N 


Before  entering  into  any  exposition  of  this  classification  and  in 
order  to  prevent  misunderstanding  at  the  very  outset  I  must  premise 
the  statement  that  no  name  in  this  table  can  have  any  other  meaning 
than  that  which  its  place  in  the  system  and  the  principle  of  division 
predetermine  for  it.  The  classification,  I  repeat,  is  not  an  attempt  to 
assign  the  actual  meanings  of  the  terms  in  any  or  all  cases,  but  the 
meaning  which  they  must  or  ought  to  have  in  an  ideal  system.  This 
meaning  may  or  may  not  conform  to  accepted  usage  in  breadth  and 
depth.  All  the  concession  that  I  have  made  to  conceptions  in  existence 
is  found  in  the  place  assigned  to  a  name.  In  this  I  have  taken  that 
meaning  which  is  nearest  the  import  that  the  term  obtains  from  the 
principle  of  division,  and  as  near  actual  usage  as  possible  where  that 
is  permissible,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  as  noticeable  in  Biology 
and  Politics.  Were  it  not  for  this  proviso  I  should  have  to  face  the 
preliminary  objection  that  many  of  the  sciences  involved  are  not  con- 
ceived in  their  acceptable  or  accepted  import,  which  a  classification  is 
usually  supposed  to  recognize.  Generally  we  classify  according  to  a 
definition  already  adopted,  but  here  I  have  adopted  certain  principles 
that  predetermine  the  problems  of  human  reflection  and  with  them  the 
conceptions  of  the  sciences  in  the  system.  Hence  I  am  in  a  measure 
endeavoring  to  determine  what  the  definition  of  the  sciences  should  be 
in  a  rational  system  of  thought,  without  in  any  way  prejudicing  the 
interests  that  have  developed  definitions  adjusted  to  practical  considera- 
tions.    With  this  explanation  the  reader  will  understand  that  I  intend 


VW/VE*8/TY 


28  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  admit  that  actual  usage  does  not  always,  if  ever,  entirely  coincide, 
and  may  not  need  to  coincide,  with  the  ideal  conception  of  the  prob- 
lems which  I  am  trying  to  define.  I  can  but  approximate  the  ideal 
when  accepted  usage  is  the  measure,  and  there  will  be  a  corresponding 
variation  when  the  ideal  is  the  standard.  I  shall  consider  objections 
later,  some  of  which  arise  from  the  omission  of  sciences  which  the 
reader  might  think  ought  to  be  specifically  included  in  the  system. 

As  has  already  been  remarked  above,  the  classification  is  partly 
territorial  and  partly  problematic.  The  divisions  represented  by  the 
phenomenological,  ideological,  and  noumenological  problems  are  also 
territorial,  this  being  the  same  for  all  of  them,  and  are  logical  in  prin- 
ciple. That  is,  the  classification  under  them  is  a  logical,  and  not  a  serial 
one,  except  as  the  latter  may  be  made  to  articulate  with  it.  It  is  the 
same  with  the  subdivisions  of  each  of  these  general  classes.  They 
are  mainly  problematic  distinctions  coinciding  with  a  common  territory 
in  general,  though  marked  by  slight  variations.  The  parallel  lines  of 
classification,  represented  by  the  letters  from  A  to  I  indicate  an  identity 
of  territory  with  a  distinction  of  problems.  That  is,  the  sciences  in- 
volved deal  with  the  same  phenomena  but  with  a  different  object  in 
view.  The  vertical  lines  of  classification,  indicated  by  the  letters  from 
J  to  N,  represent  the  serial  classification  and  involve^  a  distinction  of 
territory  with  identity  of  problems,  and  at  the  same  time  a  connection 
of  both  territory  and  problems.  To  illustrate  in  both  cases.  In  the 
parallel  lines,  Anthropology,  Psychology,  Epistemology,  Pedagogy, 
and  Pneumatology  deal  with  the  same  general  territory,  namely,  human 
phenomena,  varying  in  content  slightly  at  least,  but  representing  totally 
different  problems.  In  the  vertical  lines,  Physics,  Chemistry,  Physi- 
ology, etc.,  represent  different  territory  but  the  same  problems  for  in- 
quiry. The  dotted  lines  indicate  that  there  is  no  accepted  name  for 
the  field  or  problem  corresponding  to  it.  The  hyphenated  line  under 
Hylology  indicates  that  this  term  may  be,  or  should  be,  used  to  cover 
the  field  occupied  by  Chemistry  as  well  as  Physics.  I  have  omitted 
Phytology  or  Botany,  between  Chemistry  and  Physiology,  representa- 
tive of  the  vegetable  world,  because  there  are  no  equivalents  of  it  in 
any  of  the  other  corresponding  positions,  unless  we  accept  Horticul- 
ture under  the  teleological.  If  desired  this  desideratum  can  be  sup- 
plied by  the  student. 

I  have  omitted  certain  sciences  from  the  table  because  they  may  be 
considered  as  subdivisions  of  the  general  sciences  mentioned.  For 
example,  it  will  be  remarked  that  I  have  not  included  astronomy  in  the 
list.     The  reason  for  this  omission  is  the  fact  that  we  may  treat  this 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  29 

science  either  as  a  combination  of  mathematics  and  physics  or  as  a 
subdivision  of  physics  in  the  wider  sense,  which  latter  it  really  is, 
mathematics  entering  into  both.  We  may  thus  subordinate,  as  is 
usual,  mechanics,  hydrostatics,  thermics,  optics,  acoustics,  etc.,  to 
physics,  thus  extending  the  logical  divisions  into  the  sciences  classified 
generally  in  a  serial  form.  Similarly  we  may  deal  with  history, 
economics  and  politics,  in  the  usual  sense,  as  subdivisions  of  Sociology, 
as  here  conceived.  Sociology  is  often  defined  and  discussed  as  if  it 
were  a  science  coordinate  with  these,  but  this  grows  more  out  of  the 
coordination  of  the  men  working  in  the  subjects  than  it  does  out  of  the 
actual  phenomena  which  determined  the  science.  History,  economics, 
and  politics  are  undoubtedly  social  sciences,  or  sciences  having  to  deal 
with  social  phenomena,  and  hence  the  right  to  have  a  general  science 
comprehending  them  as  departments  of  it.  I  think  the  conception 
which  this  table  assigns  to  Sociology  accomplishes  this  desired  result, 
so  that  the  sciences  seemingly  excluded  are  tacitly  admitted  to  the 
system.  By  enlarging  the  table  and  specifying  the  subdivisions  or  de- 
partments of  the  general  sciences  in  each  case  we  could  indicate  more 
definitely  the  place  and  relation  of  omitted  sciences.  The  same  remarks 
apply  to  the  omission  of  logic  and  ethics,  except  that  the  latter  is 
actually  admitted  in  the  three  separate  sciences  which  usually  represent 
the  content  of  one.  Ethics  is  often  divided  into  theoretical  and  prac- 
tical, and  Mill  suggested  the  title  of  ethology  as  preferable.  He  did 
this  because  of  the  influence  of  the  positivistic  view  of  things  and  was 
less  inclined  than  the  ordinary  moralist  to  place  as  much  stress  on  the 
idealistic  view  which  sought  to  modify  rather  than  to  accept  the  exist- 
ing status  of  custom.  Mill  was  right,  however,  in  desiring  to  have  a 
place  for  ethology,  if  only  he  had  admitted  the  equal  right  to  impera- 
tives, or  what  I  here  call  deontological  functions  in  the  direction  of 
conduct.  But  all  these  considerations,  including  the  current  divisions 
of  ethics  into  theoretical  and  practical,  make  it  feasible  to  recognize 
three  problems,  which  are  respectively  called  ethology,  or  the  obser- 
vation and  systematization  of  human  customs  or  actual  conduct,  posi- 
tive morality ;  deontology,  or  the  science  of  the  ideal  or  duty,  the  ulti- 
mate and  imperative  end  of  conduct,  and  hence  theoretical  ethics}  and 
prattology,  or  science  of  the  conduct  or  actions  which  are  necessary 
as  means  to  attain  the  ideal  and  hence  practical  ethics.  Logic  has  been 
omitted  because  it  may  be,  and  according  to  the  conception  taken  in 
this  work  of  epistemology,  should  be  treated  as  a  branch  of  this 
science.  I  conceive  epistemology  to  be  the  science  of  the  validity  of 
knowledge,  including  perceptual,  conceptual,  judicial,  and  ratiocin- 


3©  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ative  processes.  Logic  is  specifically  the  science  of  ratiocination,  the 
last  of  the  processes  named,  but  deals  with  none  of  the  others  as  a 
part  of  its  problem.  Consequently  logic  is  tacitly  recognized  in  the 
manner  indicated. 

The  objections  which  will  suggest  themselves  to  the  use  of  terms 
in  this  classification  are  founded  on  the  differences  of  conception 
which  various  men  have  had  regarding  the  definitions  of  the  sciences. 
For  instance,  it  might  fairly  be  objected  by  some  that  jurisprudence 
is  not  an  orthological  science  at  all,  a  science  of  what  ought  ideally 
to  prevail  in  the  social  and  legal  relations  between  men,  but  a  science 
of  positive  law.  It  is  true  that  the  definition  of  this  science  has 
varied  from  the  time  of  antiquity  to  the  present  and  has  been 
affected  by  the  exigencies  of  thought  in  each  age,  as  have  nearly 
all  the  sciences.  Ulpian  regarded  it  as  the  science  of  the  just  and 
the  unjust,  taking  practically  the  view  here  implied  in  the  classi- 
fication given.  Later  writers  like  Holland  regard  it  as  the  science 
of  positive  law,  but  are  careful  to  say  that  it  is  not  "  applied  to 
actual  systems  of  law,  or  to  current  systems  of  law,  or  to  sugges- 
tions for  its  amendment,"  but  is  "  abstracted  from  positive  law."  This 
modification  of  the  general  conception  of  it  as  the  science  of  positive 
law  brings  the  idea  so  near  to  that  of  Ulpian  and  so  near  to  that  which 
is  implied  by  its  position  under  orthological  problems  that  even  Hol- 
land might  be  quoted  as  sustaining  the  general  idea  indicated  by  the 
present  classification.  But  even  if  it  does  not,  I  am  not  concerned 
with  the  adjustment  of  the  term  to  that  conception  which  has  been 
influenced  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution  and  inductive  and  "  empirical" 
methods  as  opposed  to  the  apriori,  since  I  am  endeavoring  to  indicate 
a  problem  which  lies  more  closely  to  the  historical  meaning  of  the 
term  than  the  ideas  of  those  who  discuss  another  question  under  the 
name  of  jurisprudence  which  they  conceive  as  a  sort  of  mixture  of 
legal  history  and  political  questions  which  are  branches  of  sociology  as 
here  conceived.  But  let  me  once  denominate  the  problem  involved  by 
the  term  in  a  traditional  meaning  and  the  name  may  afterward  be 
dropped  in  so  far  as  investigation  and  discussion  are  concerned.  I 
need  not  question  the  existence  of  the  problem  involved  in  the  science 
of  positive  law,  as  I  in  fact  recognize  it  as  a  part  of  sociology,  but  I 
also  recognize  an  ideal  problem  in  law  which  has  to  be  the  measure 
of  social  effort  towards  justice,  and  have  chosen  the  term  jurisprudence 
as  suited  to  name  it,  when  taken  in  one  of  its  historical  meanings.  I 
may  treat  the  term  politics  in  the  same  way.  I  have  already  indicated 
that,  in  the  accepted  usage  of  the  term,  it  represents  a  branch  of  soci- 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND   PHILOSOPHY.  31 

ology,  and  hence  I  am  not  here  employing  the  term,  as  scientific 
students  use  it  to  denominate  their  science.  Readers  will  recognize 
that,  in  practical  life  and  usage  "  politics  "  is  a  term  that  has  come  to 
denote  the  system  of  actions  and  instrumental  activities  which  are 
occupied  with  the  enactment  and  administration  of  laws.  I  have  pro- 
visionally given  the  term  that  import  in  the  classification,  in  order  to 
get  a  particular  problem  recognized,  and  then  am  quite  willing  to  drop 
the  term  from  further  consideration.  I  think  also  that  it  is  nearer  to 
the  usage  of  the  same  term  by  scientific  students  than  some  of  them 
may  be  willing  to  admit,  since  "  political  science"  is  an  investigation 
of  the  practical  instruments  and  means  to  the  very  ends  which  I  have 
defined  in  the  matter. 

The  most  radical  objection  that  would  naturally  be  taken  to  any 
term  is  that  of  "  biology  "  which  has  been  classed  with  the  metaphys- 
ical sciences  !  I  have  recognized  this  in  the  question  mark  after  it. 
Biology  in  general,  I  might  almost  say  in  universal  usage,  is  a  sort  of 
comparative  physiology  and  phytology  combined  and  as  it  is  studied 
belongs  to  the  "empirical"  or  nomological  sciences.  That  is  its 
proper  import  and  I  do  not  mean  to  displace  it.  But  I  have  availed 
myself  of  its  etymological  meaning  and  the  present  tendency  to  admit 
that  its  investigations  result  in  the  assumption  of  an  unknown  force 
which  is  called  "  life  "  as  distinct  from  physico-chemical  forces  on  the 
one  hand  and  from  psychical  agencies  on  the  other,  to  indicate  a  meta- 
physical field  coming  again  into  recognition  after  it  had  been  confined 
to  the  physico-chemical  agencies  for  a  long  time.  This  is  all  that  I 
would  accomplish  by  the  employment  of  the  term  in  the  classification. 
Though  biology  has  pursued  its  studies  hitherto  in  the  nomological 
field  it  bids  fair  to  land  with  a  conclusion  in  the  metaphysical,  as  it 
certainly  will  if  it  decides  for  a  "vital  force"  of  some  kind  that  is 
neither  physical  nor  psychical.  This  places  it  above  pneumatology 
and  below  hylology,  in  so  far  as  it  has  a  metaphysical  problem  to 
solve.  In  the  meantime  it  suffices  to  recognize  that  current  definitions 
and  conceptions  of  it  are  not  discredited  by  this  provisional  assumption 
of  its  etymological  import  to  denominate  a  final  problem  when  the 
term  cannot  have  a  simple  place  in  the  scheme  on  its  own  natural 
definition  as  a  comparative  science  combining  two  others.  Objections 
to  other  terms  would  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  way,  as  the  purpose 
here  is  to  assume  ideal  meanings  for  the  terms  and  to  leave  current 
usage  alone  without  invidious  insinuations  regarding  them. 

Considering,  then,  that  I  mean  only  to  apply  my  terminology  pro- 
visionally and  for  the  purpose   of    defining  the  various  problems  of 


32  THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

knowledge  and  as  predetermined  by  the  principles  of  division  indi- 
cated, I  may  well  escape  the  duty  to  express  adverse  opinions  respect- 
ing prevailing  ideas  of  what  the  sciences  actually  do  in  connection 
with  the  various  human  interests  that  have  determined  them.  In 
actual  usage  and  investigations  the  conception  of  a  science  is  largely 
influenced  by  the  mental  and  moral  interests  of  the  inquirer.  For 
example,  if  a  man  is  not  interested  in  metaphysics  and  theology  but  is 
interested  in  the  study  of  mental  phenomena,  he  is  likely  to  insist  that 
psychology  is  an  ' '  empirical  "  science  and  excludes  the  problems  of 
the  former  fields  from  it,  and  whether  "psychology  "  ever  comes  to 
have  that  narrower  meaning  or  not  will  depend  wholly  upon  the  extent 
to  which  investigators  into  mental  phenomena  actually  adopt  that 
limitation  of  their  inquiries  and  lose  interest  in  the  other  problems.  If 
he  is  interested  in  other  matters  than  the  mere  determination  of  mental 
phenomena  and  their  laws  and  if  it  is  necessary  to  use  these  phenomena 
for  determining  his  conclusions  he  will  introduce  other  problems  than 
the  merely  phenomenological  into  his  considerations  and  naturally  de- 
fine his  science  accordingly.  It  is  precisely  the  same  with  any  other 
science.  Nomological,  orthological,  teleological,  and  noumenological 
interests  inevitably  become  intermingled  in  the  treatment  of  phenomena 
because  human  interests  are  stronger  than  the  restraints  of  abstract 
and  logical  definition.  A  man  studying  the  properties  of  radium  is 
inevitably  led  into  discussions  of  the  theories  of  matter  and  so  involves 
himself  in  metaphysical  questions  without  troubling  himself  about  the 
definition  of  his  science  and  would  also  claim  that  it  was  no  trans- 
gression of  his  science  to  do  so,  though  he  might  not  interest  himself 
in  the  metaphysics  of  mind  at  the  same  time.  A  man  studying  the 
relations  between  mental  and  physical  phenomena  can  hardly  escape 
the  consideration  of  problems  which  would  not  logically  belong  to 
physical  science  as  usually  defined.  Consequently  what  we  find  in 
actual  life,  where  the  territory  of  facts  is  the  same  and  the  problems 
different,  is  that  the  limits  of  any  science  are  not  exactly  determined 
except  in  terms  of  the  interest  of  the  investigator.  Various  problems 
are  associated  and  articulated  with  the  same  facts  and  only  as  a  man 
deliberately  excludes  certain  of  them  from  the  consideration  of  others 
does  any  science  acquire  the  limitations  which  definition  gives  them. 
When  intellectual  and  moral  interests  conflict  controversy  arises  in 
regard  to  the  proper  functions  and  province  of  a  given  science.  But 
the  fact  that  any  man  is  not  interested  in  a  specific  problem,  even 
though  it  may  be  a  reason  for  limiting  a  particular  science  by  its  ex- 
clusion, does  not  eliminate  the  problem  from  existence  or  legitimate 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND   PHILOSOPHY.  33 

consideration.  Hence  I  have  endeavored  in  my  classification  to  pre- 
sent the  distinct  problems  of  human  interest  with  as  close  approximation 
to  customary  definition  as  the  circumstances  would  allow,  while  not 
desiring  to  prejudice  any  actual  definition  of  the  sciences  that  complex 
speculative  interests  might  wish  to  incorporate  into  the  conception  of 
a  subject.  Such  a  procedure  minimizes  the  importance  of  definition 
and  controversies  about  the  limits  of  a  science  while  it  accomplishes, 
in  the  recognition  of  the  problems  concerned,  all  that  both  sides  of 
opposing  schools  wish  to  maintain. 

These  answers  to  objections  explain  the  purpose  of  the  classifica- 
tion to  bring  out  and  make  clear  the  distinction  of  problems  even 
though  it  is  not  possible  in  actual  reflection  to  keep  the  definition  and 
conception  of  the  sciences  as  distinct  as  are  the  issues  involved  in  in- 
vestigation. But  there  are  other  objects  served  by  the  tabular  review 
adopted.  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the  circumstance  that  the  table 
represents  from  left  to  right  the  logical  and  properly  chronological 
succession  of  problems.  First  we  have  the  simple  and  unsystematized 
facts  to  catalogue.  In  this,  the  ergological  question,  we  do  not  pri- 
marily take  account  of  anything  but  the  fact  of  occurrence.  This 
must  always  be  the  first  act  of  science  and  none  other  is  possible  or 
rational.  The  next  proper  problem  is  to  ascertain  the  law  which 
governs  phenomena  obtained  by  experience.  Here  we  begin  the  prob- 
lem of  systematization.  But  at  the  same  time  the  opportunity  occurs 
for  the  mind  to  inquire  for  values  or  causes  before  this  process  of  de- 
termining laws  has  been  undertaken,  and  we  have  an  illustration  of  the 
way  in  which  unsystematic  reflection  arises  and  may  originate  confu- 
sion in  results.  But  when  indicating  that  the  proper  order  of  proced- 
ure is  the  determination  of  laws  after  ascertaining  the  facts  or  phenom- 
ena I  mean  to  describe  scientific  method,  not  the  actual  order  of  every 
one's  reflection.  But  the  nqmological  problem  should  follow,  and 
scientifically  does  follow,  the  ergological,  and  determines  some  sort  of 
order  and  unity  in  phenomena.  We  may  disregard  all  metaphysical 
questions  of  causes,  if  we  desire,  in  so  far  as  those  of  mere  coexistence 
and  sequence  of  phenomena  are  concerned,  since  many  of  the  "  prac- 
tical "  matters  of  life  may  not  be  necessarily  concerned  with  any  other 
result.  How  far  this  is  either  possible  or  useful  will  be  the  subject  of 
later  consideration.  But  it  is  important  to  observe  that  in  this  nomo- 
logical  problem  no  process  of  selection  of  phenomena,  which  takes 
place  to  the  exclusion  of  others  on  the  basis  of  values,  can  ever  be 
justified.  The  classification  of  events  is  based  upon  that  of  distinction 
in  kind  without  regard  to  value,  while  value  will  be  the  criterion  in 

3 


34  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ideological  questions.  In  the  nomological  problem  we  must  treat  all 
facts  alike,  as  we  are  seeking  the  uniformities  of  their  occurrence  and 
not  their  distinctions  of  value  alone.  Good  and  bad,  normal  and  ab- 
normal, beautiful  and  ugly,  are  not  the  first  qualities  concerned  in  their 
classification,  and  are  explained,  or  their  laws  determined,  without 
reference  to  ideal  considerations.  But  in  the  orthological  problem  we 
have  to  deal  with  criteria  of  values.  Validity  is  here  the  fundamental 
issue,  that  is,  the  choice  of  facts  or  phenomena  to  be  estimated  above 
or  below  others  in  practical  conduct  and  adjustment.  Here  utility, 
not  &&*,  is  the  standard  of  interest  and  the  line  of  demarcation  be- 
tween phenomena  will  not  coincide  with  that  which  determines  the 
nomological  problem.  Then  finally  comes  the  teleological  question 
of  means  to  the  ends  orthologically  determined.  The  last  problem  is 
thus  the  realization  of  our  ideals  by  a  determination  of  the  necessary 
means  to  their  accomplishment. 

The  positivist  or  phenomenalist  would  stop  at  this  point  and  admit 
no  other  subjects  of  investigation  into  his  system.  For  certain  pur- 
poses I  am  willing  to  admit  that  it  may  not  be  necessary  to  go  further 
(MC inquire  into  anything  else.  Of  this  again.  But  the  human  mind 
has  insisted  on  speculating  about  other  real  or  imaginary  problems,  and 
I  have  chosen  to  denominate  them  the  noumenological,  as  seeking  other 
facts  than  mere  phenomena  to  satisfy  its  curiosity,  and  so  I  make  the 
conception  convertible  with  the  term  metaphysics.  I  repudiate  Kant's 
use  of  the  term  metaphysics  as  wholly  mistaking  the  problems  which 
had  presented  themselves  to  the  human  mind  and  as  an  endeavor,  or  a 
tendency  if  not  an  endeavor,  to  confuse  sane  people  by  representing  as 
legitimate  what  the  main  thesis  of  his  system  had  denied.  In  the  con- 
ception of  this  classification  I  mean  to  use  the  term  metaphysics  and 
causal  or  noumenological  as  convertible  and  as  denoting  the  metaphe- 
nomenal  or  the  transphenomenal.  There  may  be  no  such  thing  as  a 
metaphenomenal  reality,  but  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  fact  of  this 
sort  when  trying  to  describe  the  problems  with  which  the  human  mind 
has  actually  occupied  itself.  We  may  deny  that  the  problem  is  legiti- 
mate or  soluble,  but  we  can  neither  deny  that  it  has  existed  nor  use  its 
phraseology  for  legitimate  conceptions  after  discrediting  the  ideas 
for  which  it  has  always  stood.  I  shall  therefore  use  the  term  meta- 
physics to  define  a  real  or  imaginary  problem  without  implying  its 
legitimacy  or  illegitimacy,  but  a  problem  of  something  more  than  mere 
phenomena. 

The  special  sciences  or  disciplines  under  this  head  are  metrology, 
hylology,   pneumatology,   and  theology.     I  should   have  to    include 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  35 

biology  with  the  qualifications  already  stated.  They  represent  the 
problem  of  the  existence  and  nature  of  realities  other  than  mere  events, 
or  phenomena  as  represented  or  representible  in  sensory  experience. 
By  metrology  I  mean  the  metaphysics  of  space  and  time,  such  as  their 
nature,  dimensional  quality  and  relation  to  other  realities,  and  as  prin- 
ciples of  continuity  and  individuation,  determining  all  the  applications 
of  mathematics.  Following  this  on  the  serial  principle  of  Comte  is 
hylology,  representing  the  problem  of  the  existence  and  nature  of 
matter  and  so  including  all  such  speculations  as  the  atomic  theory,  the 
vortex  atom  theory,  the  theory  of  ether,  the  ancient,  the  Cartesian  and 
other  theories  of  a  plenum,  and  the  modern  speculation  based  upon 
electrons  and  ions.  Pneumatology  represents  the  problem  concerning 
the  existence  and  nature  of  the  soul,  of  a  reality  other  than  the  brain 
or  organism  to  account  for  the  facts  of  consciousness.  Theology  seeks 
to  determine  the  existence  and  nature  of  God,  or  an  Absolute  assumed 
to  underlie  and  control  the  whole  universe  of  phenomenal  or  other 
dependent  reality.  i 

These  speculative  inquiries  or  sciences,  if  we  may  call  them  such, 
are  given  in  the  order  of  their  dependence  and  certitude.  Space  ai  A 
time  represent  the  first  data  whose  certitude  seems  not  to  be  open  to 
question  of  any  kind,  though  their  nature  may  be  subject  to  discussion. 
They  represent  the  static  universe,  as  they  involve  no  change  or  pher 
nomenal  modes.  In  the  next  stage  we  have  matter  whose  conception 
is  the  reflex  of  the  mind's  consciousness  of  certain  phenomena  which 
are  supposed  to  have  this  center  of  reference  as  a  subject  of  the  world 
of  change,  a  substantive  background  which  we  agree  to  call  matter. 
These  phenomena  which  suggest  such  a  background  are  comprehended 
in  certain  changes  or  activities  which  require  us  to  suppose  something 
other  than  space  or  time  as  their  ground.  If  there  were  no  phenomenal 
changes  whatever  we  should  have  a  universe  altogether  static  which  we 
could  not  distinguish  from  space  and  time.  But  the  existence  of  certain 
facts  which  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  static  realities  of  space  and  time, 
but  which  are  yet  conditioned  by  them,  at  least  in  certain  manifesta- 
tions, creates  the  necessity  for  supposing  a  reality  which  we  conceive 
as  of  the  substantive  sort  in  addition  to  space  and  time.  Now  the 
most  important  thing  to  observe  at  this  point  is  the  limitation  which 
rational  and  scientific  method  places  upon  reflection  at  every  stage  of 
its  procedure.  After  we  have  accepted  the  existence  of  matter  to  ex- 
plain a  given  kind  of  phenomenal  change  the  law  of  parsimony 
requires  us  not  to  admit  the  existence  of  any  other  type  of  reality,  just 
-as  space  and  time  permit  none  other  unless  dynamic  facts  demand  it. 


36  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Our  proper  scientific  duty  is  to  explain  all  associated  phenomena  by 
the  same  cause  unless  there  are  sufficient  reasons  for  assuming  other 
realities.  That  is  to  say,  unless  adequate  reasons  arise,  we  must  ex- 
plain the  phenomena  of  consciousness  as  functions  of  the  brain  or 
organism,  just  as  we  do  digestion  and  circulation,  because  they  are  as- 
sociated with  it  in  the  same  way.  Hence  pneumatology,  whatever 
place  it  may  have  in  a  classification  of  theories  and  problems,  will 
have  no  real  place  of  a  legitimate  sort  in  the  system  of  speculative 
thought  unless  we  have  evidence  either  that  consciousness  is  so  different 
from  physical  events  that  it  cannot  be  explained  by  the  same  cause  or 
that  it  exists  independently  of  the  material  organism.  Pneumatology 
is  conditioned  upon  the  existence  of  facts  that  require  us  to  suppose 
something  besides  matter  to  account  for  them.  But  as  long  as  con- 
sciousness is  associated  with  a  physiological  organism  both  the  evi- 
dential and  the  explanatory  problem  will  create  the  same  relation  be- 
tween hylology  and  pneumatology  as  that  between  physiology  and 
psychology.  The  relation  between  pneumatology  and  theology  will 
be  analogous.  The  existence  and  nature  of  any  other  higher  intelli- 
gence than  man  in  the  universe,  especially  according  to  the  results  of 
evolution,  will  depend,  first,  on  the  discovery  of  phenomena  for  which 
matter  cannot  supply  an  explanation,  and,  secondly,  upon  the  dis- 
covery of  a  mental  reality  in  man  other  than  the  brain  to  account  for 
his  consciousness,  and  as  an  indication  that  matter  is  not  the  only 
reality  in  existence.  Both  the  immaterial  and  the  spiritual  must  be 
decided  in  man  as  a  condition  of  getting  the  spiritual  beyond  him,, 
that  is,  as  a  condition  of  proving  the  existence  of  God.  Whether  any 
such  result  can  be  achieved  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  assume  or  assert  in 
a  classification  of  problems.  I  am  only  defining  the  issues  as  they  must 
be  conceived  in  a  scientific  system.  It  places  theology  as  the  last 
science  in  both  its  nature  and  certitude,  the  last  problem  which  man 
has  to  solve,  if  it  be  legitimate  or  soluble  at  all. 

It  will  be  noticed  also  that  there  is  but  one  vertical  column  of 
sciences  under  the  division  of  astiological  and  ontological  problems. 
The  reason  for  this  is  that  I  should  have  been  forced  otherwise  to  coin 
terms  for  all  instances  except  theology  and  pneumatology.  The  term 
pneumatology  exists  but  has  no  general  current  use  for  a  special  prob- 
lem, and  even  when  it  was  used  in  scholastic  philosophy  it  did  not 
always,  if  ever,  have  exactly  the  meaning  which  I  ascribe  to  it  here, 
except  in  a  general  way.  Consequently  I  have  been  content  with 
single  terms  for  two  sets  of  problems  which  can  be  ideally  distin- 
guished, as  in  all  the  other  subdivisions,  namely,  the  evidential  and 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  2)7 

explanatory  problem  of  the  existence  and  the  unifying  problem  of  the 
nature  of  certain  realities.  Actual  custom  has  embodied  all  discussion 
of  the  noumenological  problems,  both  aetiological  and  ontological  as 
defined  here,  under  the  general  head  of  philosophy  or  metaphysics, 
and  no  effort  has  been  made  to  specially  distinguish  one  problem  from 
the  other.  In  fact,  it  might  even  be  said  that  the  noumenological 
problem  is  not  consciously  admitted  to  be  an  object  of  legitimate  or 
possible  quest,  especially  among  those  who  are  devout  worshippers  of 
Kant.  All  that  can  be  claimed,  in  so  far  as  conscious  theoretical  re- 
flection is  concerned,  is  that  the  noumenological  problem  is  tacitly 
assumed  in  many  of  the  conceptions  and  speculations  of  human  thought. 
The  main  thing  contended  for  is  that  the  inquiry  regarding  the  exist- 
ence and  nature  of  any  realities  or  facts  other  than  phenomena  shall  be 
kept  distinct  from  the  objects  of  the  phenomenological  and  ideological 
sciences.  I  shall  denominate  this  problem  as  that  of  metaphysics  and 
shall  intend  by  it  to  include  all  the  questions  involved  in  the  separate 
disciplines  under  the  noumenological  division,  assuming  that  aetiologi- 
cal and  ontological  questions  are  aspects  of  the  general  problem,  or 
concern  both  the  existence  and  the  nature  of  transphenomenal  reality. 
These  must  be  further  explained. 

The  term  "  noumenon,"  or  noumenological,  is  an  unfortunate  one. 
It  suggests  all  the  difficulties,  confusion,  obscurities  and  dubious 
problems  of  Kant's  "  Ding  an  sich"  which  was  "unknown"  and 
M  unknowable,"  though  it  was  strangely  asserted  to  exist.  I  do  not 
mean  here  to  import  into  the  problem  which  I  have  indicated  the  con- 
ceptions which  defined  the  term  for  Kant.  If  I  had  to  do  this  I  should 
repudiate  the  term  altogether  as  only  calculated  to  produce  intellectual 
anarchy.  But  I  do  wish  to  recognize  that  Kant's  distinction  be- 
tween noumena  and  phenomena,  if  rightly  defined  and  qualified,  and 
when  cleared  of  the  confusion  created  by  so  much  irresponsible  and 
dogmatic  talk  about  the  "  unknowable,"  has  an  important  function  for 
human  reflection.  Hence  I  use  the  term  "  noumenon"  here  to  denote 
indifferently  the  cause  and  the  ground  or  subject  of  an  event  or  phenom- 
enon. I  might  even  rely  upon  one  side  of  Kant's  own  system  to  sup- 
port this  recognized  use  of  the  term,  as  his  conception  of  the  action  of 
something  upon  the  subject  in  sense,  "  durch  Krafte,"  and  not  the 
sensation  itself,  as  well  as  his  whole  doctrine  of  substance,  distinctly 
assumes  the  idea  here  advanced,  and  it  represents  a  transphenomenal 
fact.  I  mean  that  the  distinction  between  aetiological  and  ontological 
shall  be  convertible  with  that  between  sufficient  reason  or  efficient 
cause  and  that  represented  by  the  principle  of  identity  and  difference 


38  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which,  if  we  like,  we  may  denominate  the  "  material"  cause.  Con- 
sequently I  shall  mean  by  noumenon  or  reality  any  fact  whatsoever 
which  transcends  events  or  phenomena  that  may  be  the  subject  of  in- 
vestigation and  hence  explanation  by  a  center  of  reference  commonly  ex- 
pressed in  a  term  for  a  substance  or  subject  of  attributes.  Whenever 
we  recognize  an  event,  activity,  change,  or  phenomenon,  which  we 
may  conceive  as  a  function  of  something,  or,  if  you  like,  as  an  attri- 
bute of  a  static  or  dynamic  something,  we  adopt  some  term  to  indicate 
the  existence  of  that  center  of  reference  which  we  make,  in  some 
sense  of  the  term,  to  be  other  than  the  fact  so  referred.  For  example, 
if  we  discover  certain  events  in  connection  with  the  behavior  of  the 
nitrogen  obtained  from  the  air  and  different  from  the  qualities  of  nitro- 
gen obtained  from  organic  compounds  we  suspect  the  existence  of  a 
new  substance  and  investigation  shows  that  this  new  subject  exists. 
The  name  argon  is  adopted  to  express  it.  This  is  not  conceived  as  a 
mere  phenomenon,  because,  if  it  were,  there  would  be  no  reason  for 
detaching  it  from  nitrogen.  But  the  fact  that  certain  phenomena  de- 
mand a  subject  or  substance  to  which  they  belong  determines,  in  this 
isolation  of  the  new  phenomena,  that  we  shall  admit  the  existence  of  a 
new  substance.  It  is  the  same  with  absolutely  every  substantive  con- 
cept we  have.  They  are  all  centers  of  reference  for  various  phenom- 
ena or  attributes  which  do  not  exist  alone.  This  is  the  process  by 
which  the  very  conception  of  matter  has  been  formed.  We  observe 
certain  events  and  uniformities  of  activity,  or  attributes,  static  or 
dynamic,  and  refer  them  to  a  subject  or  substance  which  we  choose  to 
call  "  matter."  It  is  not  the  phenomenon  or  phenomena,  but  the 
ground  of  it  or  of  them.  Whether  we  have  the  right  to  suppose  any 
such  thing  is  not  the  question,  but  whether  we  actually  do  it  or  not. 
I  am  simply  indicating  the  facts  which  give  rise  to  certain  modes  of 
thought  and  speculation  and  showing  that  they  apply  equally  in  what 
is  called  "  physical  science  "  as  in  what  passes  for  "  metaphysics."  I 
regard  it  as  a  metaphysical  procedure  wherever  it  occurs.  Hence  by 
noumenological  inquiries  I  mean  simply  the  problem  of  ascertaining 
whether  there  is  anything  beyond  the  event  or  phenomenon  which  we 
observe  in  experience,  and  this  reality  other  than  the  event  will  be 
assumed  or  accepted  on  every  occasion  on  which  the  evidence  goes  to 
show  either  that  the  fact  does  not  explain  itself  or  that  existing 
assumed  realities  will  not  explain  it,  as  in  the  cases  of  argon,  radium, 
etc.  Such  realities  are  simply  the  permanent  centers  of  reference, 
subjects  or  substances  which  have  these  events  or  activities  as  their 
modes  of   behavior,  functions,  attributes,  properties,  etc.     The  nou- 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  39 

menological  problem,  therefore,  is  the  only  question  of  determining 
evidentially  whether  any  such  thing  or  things  exist  besides  the  events 
to  be  accounted  for.  Besides  all  substantive  realities  of  a  specific  sort, 
we  have  in  speculative  philosophy  various  representatives  of  this  proc- 
ess in  the  general  term  "  matter,"  and  the  more  specific  terms  "  ether," 
"soul,"  "God."  The  recent  doctrine  of  "energy"  as  a  substance 
shows  the  same  inevitable  tendency. 

After  the  mind  determines  upon  the  fact  that  there  is  something 
besides  the  mere  events  or  phenomena  of  observation,  if  there  be  more 
than  one  reality  supposed,  it  seeks  to  ascertain  their  "  nature  "  in  terms 
of  comparison  with  each  other.  This  is  what  I  have  called  the  onto- 
logical  problem,  using  that  term  in  one  of  its  scholastic  meanings  to 
denote  what  maybe  called  a  "material"  cause  of  things  as  distinct 
from  the  efficient,  active  or  creative  cause.  If  there  be  but  one  kind 
of  noumenal  reality,  that  is,  if  absolute  monism  be  the  accepted  doc- 
trine, the  ontological  and  etiological  problems  will  practically  coincide. 
In  that  case  the  only  criterion  of  what  a  thing  "is,"  or  what  its 
"  nature"  is,  would  be  what  it  does,  that  is,  its  modes  of  action  or 
properties.  In  the  last  analysis,  as  I  mean  to  show  later,  the  "  nature  " 
of  anything  and  everything  must  be  determined  in  this  way.  But  in  a 
world  of  multiplicity,  whether  phenomenal  or  noumenal,  comparison 
of  realities  is  possible,  while  in  a  purely  monistic  system  this  cannot 
be  instituted  for  determining  an  ontological  unity  and  diversity  not 
already  assumed  in  the  primary  reality.  But  if  pluralism  be  assumed 
the  question  of  identities  and  differences  arises  and  the  ontological 
problem  will  be  to  find  such  "unity"  as  is  possible  by  reducing  the 
number  of  differential  realities  as  far  as  possible.  All  classification  by 
genus  and  species  effects  this.  In  the  physical  sciences,  at  present, 
this  process  has  reduced  the  number  of  compound  or  complex  realities 
to  a  more  or  less  definite  number,  and  the  number  of  "elements"  to 
seventy  or  more,  so  far  as  known.  The  etiological  problem  may  not 
take  us  beyond  a  chaos,  inasmuch  as  it  requires  only  the  postulation 
of  a  cause  for  each  event  and  unless  there  is  some  way  of  unifying  the 
system  by  the  principle  of  identity  in  some  form,  the  world  will  remain 
a  chaos.  Ontological  comparison,  reducing  the  number  of  kinds  to 
the  smallest  possible,  gives  us,  in  a  pluralistic  system  the  greatest  pos- 
sible "unity"  with  the  least  possible  diversity.  In  the  last  stage  of 
inquiry  we  may  find  that  even  the  elements  or  atoms  are  but  one  in 
kind,  as  a  recent  doctrine  of  the  atoms  maintains,  but  even  with  this 
pluralism  of  some  kind  prevails,  and  only  monism  of  the  most  abso- 
lute type  can  escape  making  the  principle  of  identity  and  difference 


40  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

coordinate  with  that  of  causality.  But  until  that  condition  of  fact  is 
reached  the  ontological  and  setiological  problems  will  remain  separate, 
and  it  will  always  be  required  of  us  that  we  first  prove  the  existence 
of  noumenal  reality  and  then  investigate  its  "  nature  "  in  relation  to 
other  noumenal  realities.  Whether  it  is  legitimate  to  hunt  for  or  assert 
the  existence  of  anything  but  phenomena  and  their  laws  I  am  not  main- 
taining, but  only  classifying  the  reflective  ways  of  thinking  in  all  fields 
of  investigation  whatsoever.  They  are  not  peculiar  to  what  is  styled, 
often  with  contempt,  "  metaphysics,"  but  are  equally  characteristic  of 
absolutely  all  physical  sciences  when  they  speak  and  think  of  atomic 
or  other  realities,  which  they  assume  to  be  the  proximate  or  ultimate 
center  of  reference  for  phenomena,  functions,  attributes,  or  prop- 
erties, etc.  If  this  procedure  is  legitimate  in  the  physical  sciences 
it  is  also  legitimate  in  what  are  called  the  metaphysical  sciences,  and  if 
it  is  not  so  in  the  latter  it  will  not  be  so  in  the  former.  JFalsus  in  uno 
falsus  in  omnibus.  Contemptuous  banishment  of  it  in  one  field  must 
lead  to  it  in  the  other,  and  its  admission  in  one  qualifies  it  for  recogni- 
tion in  the  other. 

The  importance  of  this  classification  of  problems  lies  less  in  the 
mere  delimitation  of  problems  as  such  than  it  does  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  prepares  the  way  for  pacifying  the  animosities  of  certain  tra- 
ditional controversies.  The  conflict  between  "metaphysics"  and 
u  science"  in  modern  times  has  hardly  been  less  heated  than  the  old 
one  between  theology  and  science.  Both  have  been  encouraged  by  the 
limitation  of  "  knowledge  "  to  "  phenomena."  One  school  has  in- 
sisted that  the  most  important  truths  are  associated  with  the  determi- 
nation of  ultimate  realities,  and  the  other  refused  to  recognize  the  value 
of  any  such  truths  because  it  maintained  that  such  realities  could  not 
be  known  if  they  existed.  But  even  if  they  were  in  any  way  "  know- 
able  "  the  positive  or  phenomenal  school,  viewing  the  discussions  of 
scholasticism  as  interminable  and  fruitless,  found  no  way  to  keep  clear  of 
such  controversies  but  to  discredit  them  and  to  emphasize  the  value  of 
studying  facts.  The  assumed  or  declared  supremacy  of  the  inductive 
method,  as  against  the  deductive  which  was  supposed  to  prevail  in  the 
barren  disputes  of  scholasticism,  encouraged .  suspense  of  judgment 
in  regard  to  the  "nature"  of  things  until  their  actual  behavior  was 
known,  and  this  method  required  at  least  the  provisional  suspen- 
sion of  "  metaphysical  "  reflection.  Contentment  with  the  study  of 
"  phenomena  "  alone  inevitably  led  to  the  neglect  of  all  the  "  meta- 
physical "  speculations  of  the  period  against  which  the  new  movement 
was  a  protest.     The  consequence  was  that  men  more  and  more  became 


PROBLEMS   OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  41 

satisfied  with  the  investigation  of  phenomenological  and  ideological 
problems  and  the  noumenological  or  "  metaphysical"  were  relegated 
to  the  limbo  of  fancy  and  dreams.  It  was  found  that  some  sort  of 
progress  was  possible  by  abandoning  interminable  discussions  about 
the  "  nature  of  things"  and  theological  quiddities,  and  devoting  effort 
to  the  patient  study  of  facts.  Knowledge  was  thereby  increased  and 
the  conditions  of  life  improved.  The  human  mind  naturally  inclined 
toward  the  methods  that  actually  achieved  some  conquest  over  nature 
and  mystery.  Hence  the  whole  tendency  has  been  toward  the  pri- 
mary importance  of  knowing  what  phenomena  are  and  their  laws  while 
all  other  alleged  problems  were  discarded.  Now  it  is  a  fact  that  many 
of  the  affairs  of  life  are  not  affected  by  "  metaphysical  "  conclusions 
one  way  or  the  other.  The  interests  of  agriculture,  of  industrial  man- 
ufacture, of  trade,  of  architecture,  are  not  affected  by  the  question 
whether  Berkeley  or  Lucretius  is  right  about  the  existence  or  nature 
of  matter.  When  I  have  to  sow  my  crops  for  bread  what  do  I  care 
whether  "  matter  "  shall  be  resolved  into  the  manifestations  of  spirit  or 
not.  The  relation  between  my  food  and  the  sustenance  of  life  is  the 
same  on  any  conception  of  "  matter,"  whether  it  be  resolvable  or  not 
into  vortex  atoms  of  ether.  None  of  the  speculations  of  philosophers 
in  any  way  affect  the  economic  or  material  affairs  of  human  life  as 
conditions  of  its  support.  The  discovery  of  this  fact  and  the  necessity 
of  respecting  it  for  the  various  needs  of  civilization,  after  the  break  up 
of  scholasticism,  forced  mankind  to  pay  attention  to  the  actual  facts 
and  laws  of  things  to  meet  the  practical  wants  of  the  age.  The  decline 
of  "  metaphysics  "  was  inevitable,  as  it  could  lay  claim  to  no  value  but 
a  spiritual,  whatever  that  meant,  and  the  progress  of  science  was  ac- 
companied by  such  a  tendency  toward  materialism  that  a  spiritual 
view  of  the  world  has  become  well-nigh  impossible,  except  to  those 
who  like  to  fool  themselves  by  quibbles  about  "  matter"  and  vague 
misty  speech  about  spirit  in  the  impenetrable  and  foggy  wilderness  of 
Kanto-Hegelianism.  In  so  far  as  the  phenomenalist  had  the  ordinary 
practical  affairs  of  life  in  mind,  the  adjustment  of  human  events  to 
actual  facts,  he  has  been  right.  All  our  relations  to  the  external  world, 
our  objective  morality  or  the  attainment  of  the  interests  which  are  de- 
termined by  adjustment  to  "  natural"  forces,  are  realized  by  conform- 
ity to  facts  and  not  to  theories  about  these  facts.  It  matters  not  what 
gravitation  is,  whether  it  is  a  pushing  or  a  pulling  influence,  a  material 
or  an  immaterial  force,  my  behavior  toward  the  conditions  supposed 
to  be  affected  by  it  must  be  the  same,  assuming  that  I  mean  to  pre- 
serve my  life  at  all.     I  must  have  a  regard  to  the  seasons  and  their 


42  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

order  if  I  am  to  protect  myself  against  the  risks  of  their  changes,  and 
this  without  regard  to  the  question  whether  the  cosmic  order  is  either 
proximately  or  ultimately  a  spiritual  one.  The  actual  phenomena  of 
experience  and  their  laws,  the  uniformities  or  variations  of  their  coex- 
istence and  sequence,  are  the  first  considerations  which  man  has  to 
respect  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  philosophic  theories  have 
either  to  assume  a  position  of  minor  importance  or  be  disregarded 
altogether.  If  man  had  a  more  universal  tendency  to  suicide,  cosmic 
and  other  theories  supposed  to  determine  the  value  of  life  and  the 
duty  to  preserve  it  might  have  more  importance  as  well  as  power  to 
affect  conduct.  But  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  so  strong 
usually  that  the  problem  is  not  to  supply  adequate  motives  for  self 
protection  and  obedience  to  natural  appetites,  but  to  so  regulate  these 
instincts  and  their  exercise  that  the  end  of  self-preservation  is  not  sur- 
reptitiously defeated.  A  knowledge  of  facts  is  the  main  thing  wanted 
in  the  regulation  of  this  condition  of  affairs.  It  is  not  theories  of  a 
transcendental  world  that  are  necessary  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
life  and  conduct  which  are  supposedly  necessary  to  make  philosophic 
belief  possible  and  correct,  but  it  is  a  knowledge  of  the  actual  behavior 
of  the  physical  world  and  the  relation  of  this  behavior  to  my  welfare 
as  a  physical  being.  I  shall  not  deny  a  place  in  the  totality  of  human 
development  to  philosophic  reflection  and  metaphysical  theories,  but 
they  are  not  the  primary  considerations  in  the  regulation  of  life  and 
conduct.  Certain  conditions  have  first  to  be  satisfied  in  order  to  make 
such  theories  possible  and  effective,  and  these  conditions  are  a  knowl- 
edge of  actual  facts,  of  phenomena  and  their  laws,  in  order  to  deter- 
mine the  situation  to  which  my  actions  must  be  adjusted,  that  is,  in 
order  that,  from  the  uniformities  of  coexistence  and  sequence,  I  may  see 
before  and  after  and  thread  the  labyrinthian  path  of  nature  without 
risk  of  being  swallowed  up  in  its  abysses  or  of  conflict  with  surround- 
ing forces  in  the  narrow  course  which  I  have  to  follow.  So  far  the 
positivist  and  phenomenalist  are  right.  The  primary  duty  of  man  is  re- 
spect for  facts  nearest  him  and  those  facts  whose  certitude  is  easiest  of 
establishment.  He  begins  his  knowledge  with  experience  of  facts  or  phe- 
nomena and  he  cannot  rationally  philosophize  until  he  observes  these. 
Much  of  his  conduct  must  be  decided  upon  both  before  he  is  able  to  phil- 
osophize and  without  regard  to  it.  Besides  whatever  philosophy  he 
adopts  it  will  depend  upon  his  previous  knowledge  of  what  the  phe- 
nomena and  laws  of  "  nature  "  are,  as  all  rational  philosophy  or  meta- 
physics must  be  an  explanation  of  facts,  or  be  justly  accused  of  being 
sheer  invention. 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  43 

What  positivism  or  phenomenalism  has  stood  for,  whatever  the 
mistakes  and  errors  that  may  be  attributable  to  it,  is  primary  respect 
for  facts  and  sympathy  with  the  intellectual  movement  initiated  by  in- 
ductive and  scientific  method.  The  genius  of  this  tendency  was  soon 
realized  and  its  antagonism  to  scholastic  speculation  was  so  apparent 
that,  as  in  all  revolutionary  impulses,  the  actual  work  of  previous 
periods  was  neglected  in  favor  of  the  prophetic  promises  of  a  new 
world  of  interest  and  hope.  Consequently  in  eradicating  the  false 
method  of  speculative  philosophy,  the  a  priori  assumptions  and 
reasoning  of  scholastic  thought,  from  which  even  Kant  did  not  wholly 
free  himself,  the  human  mind  took  the  "  empirical  "  tack  toward  an 
exclusive  regard  for  phenomena  which  seemed  to  be  its  only  hope  of 
liberation  from  the  shackles  of  dogmatism.  The  new  movement, 
however,  simply  esconced  itself  comfortably  in  another  dogmatism 
about  the  limitations  of  knowledge  to  "  phenomena,"  and  in  its  talk 
about  u  experience"  made  no  provision  for  the  elasticity. and  ever-ex- 
tending area  of  these  boundaries.  While  it  might  be  true  enough  that 
certain  truths  were  not  demonstrable  by  known  facts  or  phenomena, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  conception  of  "  facts  "  or  "  phenomena,"  or  the 
idea  and  limits  of  "  experience,"  to  prevent  the  discovery  of  data  that 
may  prove  what  one  age  or  stage  of  reflection  had  no  rational  grounds 
to  believe.  Hence  the  scholastic  dogma  of  unlimited  knowledge  was 
simply  met  by  another  dogma  about  its  limits,  and  these  limits  involved 
the  assumption  that  no  one  could  know  anything  more  than  the  indi- 
viduals who  were  so  confident  about  phenomenalism.  But  there  are 
interests  and  instincts  in  human  nature  which  extend  far  beyond  the 
mere  needs  of  adjustment  to  facts  or  self-preservation.  Intellectual 
curiosity  as  to  the  explanation  of  phenomena  is  an  instinct  quite  as 
strong  as  any  desire  to  live,  at  least  in  some  individuals.  We  need  not 
go  farther  than  the  atomic  theory  or  the  vortex  atom  theory  of  matter 
to  see  this,  and  if  we  are  to  indulge  our  intellectual  appetencies  at  all, 
we  are  not  likely  to  limit  them  to  the  narrow  confines  to  which  Comte 
and  his  school,  if  logically  consistent,  must  reduce  them.  Our  intel- 
lects interest  themselves  in  other  pursuits  than  those  of  making  bread 
or  escaping  death  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  the  phenomenalist 
may  as  well  recognize  this.  What  he  ought  to  have  seen  was,  not 
that  all  metaphysics  was  wrong,  but  that  the  prevailing  systems  were 
wrong  in  their  method,  and  then  to  have  based  the  value  of  his  own 
point  of  view  on  its  inductive  method  rather  than  on  the  limitation  of 
"  knowledge  "  to  "  phenomena,"  a  term  quite  as  equivocal  as  any  other 
in  philosophy  and  which  can  be  used  as  well  as  any  other  to  call  back 


44  *  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

into  being  the  very  philosophies  which  it  had  been  used  to  dispel.  It 
was  a  reform  of  method  that  was  needed  as  much  as  that  of  material 
results,  and  it  would  have  conduced  to  less  error  and  more  progress 
away  from  controversy  if  that  tack  had  been  taken  instead  of  inviting 
such  a  fruitless  discussion  as  has  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Kantian 
movement,  a  kind  of  phenomenalism  that  carries  on  a  sort  of  hypo- 
critical flirtation  with  every  imaginable  form  of  dogmatism.  I  hope, 
therefore,  that  the  above  classification  of  problems  has  enabled  me  to 
take  a  just  view  of  both  phenomenalism  and  transphenomenalism,  if  I 
may  so  call  the  study  of  metaphysics,  admitting  legitimate  claims  to 
both  while  I  assign  to  phenomenological  problems  the  primary  im- 
portance as  conditions  of  sane  metaphysics  and  as  evidence  that 
"scientific  method"  is  the  only  one  which  I  shall  recognize  as  quali- 
fied to  determine  truth  of  any  kind.  Method  of  investigation  is  the 
first  reform  needed  in  philosophy  and  it  would  have  occasioned  as  much 
advance  in  that  field  as  in  science,  if  it  had  been  demanded  instead  of 
ridiculing  all  metaphysical  reflection. 

Two  things  will  now  be  apparent  in  regard  to  the  results  of  this 
classification  of  the  problems  of  science  and  philosophy.  The  first  is 
that  it  recognizes  all  that  the  "empiricist"  and  phenomenalist  can 
rightly  claim  in  the  nature  of  knowledge  and  method  of  inquiry.  The 
second  is  that  the  classification  defines  the  conceptions  of  epistemology 
and  metaphysics  in  the  way  that  this  work  means  to  treat  them. 
Epistemology  is  conceived  as  a  science  of  validity  in  the  processes  of 
"  knowledge"  and  not  a  system  of  philosophy,  nor  a  propaedeutic  of 
philosophy  or  metaphysics  any  more  than  it  is  of  physiology,  psy- 
chology, sociology,  physics  or  chemistry.  It  is  usually  treated  as  if 
a  metaphysics  were  not  possible  until  one  had  formed  a  theory  of 
"  knowledge,"  but  so  far  from  the  theory  of  "  knowledge  "  being  an 
absolutely  necessary  condition  of  a  metaphysics,  I  shall  treat  it  only  as 
a  clarifying  help  in  such  a  result,  important  to  complete,  not  to  condi- 
tion all  philosophy.  We  cannot  refuse  some  conditioning  influence  on 
other  thought  to  the  investigations  which  aim  to  determine  the  criteria 
of  truth  in  the  processes  which  have  to  be  assumed  and  used  in  all  in- 
quiry, but  what  I  maintain  is  that  it  does  not  specially  condition  meta- 
physics more  than  it  does  all  other  forms  of  investigation  and  reflection. 
It  is  in  fact  not  the  "  condition  "  of  any  of  the  disciplines,  being  itself 
conditioned  by  the  same  general  assumptions  and  principles  that  gov- 
ern all  the  sciences.  Modern  philosophers,  however,  since  Kant  have 
a  habit  of  conditioning  everything  on  the  results  of  epistemology  and 
hence  of  demanding  that  every  system  of  metaphysics  predetermines  its 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  45 

rights  by  the  inquiries  which  are  instituted  to  ascertain  the  nature  and 
limits  of  "  knowledge,"  begging  the  question  all  the  while  in  their 
confusion  of  the  object  with  the  process  of  investigation.  It  starts 
with  scepticism  in  regard  to  systems  of  philosophy  and  either  forgets 
to  apply  this  method  to  epistemology  or  fails  to  see  that  unless  it 
abandons  this  method  it  can  obtain  no  results  in  its  own  field.  If  the 
mind  is  not  competent  to  investigate  metaphysical  problems  until  it  has 
obtained  a  theory  of  "  knowledge  "  it  is  not  competent  to  form  a  theory 
of  '*  knowledge,"  while  trust  in  its  faculties  in  epistemology  only  jus- 
tifies the  employment  of  the  same  powers  in  metaphysics  or  any  other 
science  without  regard  to  the  conditioning  relations  of  the  theory  of 
"  knowledge."  We  cannot  distrust  the  mind  in  its  metaphysical  func- 
tions and  implicitly  accept  its  judgments  in  epistemology.  The  same 
functions  are  involved  in  both,  a  fact  indubitably  proved  by  the  uni- 
versal tendency  since  Kant  to  make  epistemology  more  or  less  conver- 
tible with  metaphysics,  or  when  not  this,  to  regard  it  as  predeter- 
mining the  view  which  we  take  of  things.  But  if  we  are  competent 
to  investigate  "knowledge"  we  are  also  competent  to  investigate 
metaphysics,  and  whatever  limits  are  assigned  to  "  knowledge"  in  the 
latter  must  be  admitted  in  the  former,  and  if  we  start  with  scepticism 
we  must  end  with  it.  Consequently  the  real  condition  of  philosophy 
is  the  same  in  both  fields.  It  is  not  the  dependence  of  metaphysics 
upon  the  determination  of  the  limitations  of  "  knowledge,"  but  the 
application  of  scientific  and  critical  methods  to  both.  It  is  scientific 
method,  not  the  theory  of  "  knowledge  "  that  conditions  truth  about 
things.  I  therefore  regard  epistemology  as  simply  one  of  the  sciences 
coordinate  with  the  others,  and  metaphysics,  if  allowable  at  all,  as 
simply  the  most  fundamental  of  all  investigations  of  phenomena. 

But  now  a  most  important  fact  comes  to  view  which  I  have  pur- 
posely avoided  thus  far.  It  is  the  relation  between  the  metaphysical 
sciences  and  the  phenomenological.  The  tabular  representation  indi- 
cates, by  implication  at  least,  that  they  are  the  last  in  time  in  the  proc- 
ess of  inquiry.  This  is  not  necessarily  the  case.  The  chief  reason 
for  placing  them  in  the  last  column,  as  if  all  other  problems  had  first 
to  be  solved,  was  consideration  for  positivism  and  the  doubts  that  might 
be  entertained  as  to  the  value  or  even  possibility  of  metaphysics  of  any 
kind.  But  the  fact  is  that  conclusions  in  metaphysics  are  so  closely 
associated  with  nomological  results  that  temporally  we  may  not  be 
able  to  distinguish  "causes  "  from  "  laws."  The  same  conditions  and 
criteria  that  determine  one  often  determine  the  other  at  the  same  time. 
Besides  we  have  often  assumed  the  nature  of  the  reality  at  the  basis  of 


46  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

phenomena  before  we  investigate  their  laws.  The  application  of  the 
principle  of  causality  is  so  natural  and  inevitable  from  the  earliest 
period  of  conscious  reflection  that  its  results  are  often  anterior  to  the 
question  of  laws.  Hence  we  often  have  a  system,  always  I  might  say, 
before  we  begin  the  nomological  study  of  phenomena.  Then,  as  I 
have  just  said,  when  this  investigation  has  begun  the  close  connection 
between  the  two  problems  in  respect  to  the  method  of  determining 
results  is  such  that  the  same  conditions  often  decide  one  of  the  prob- 
lems that  decide  the  other.  That  is,  in  determining  the  laws  of  phe- 
nomena we  at  the  same  time  determine  their  causes.  The  uniformity 
of  coexistence  and  sequence  is,  in  fact,  a  criterion  of  what  the  cause 
is  when  the  assumption  of  any  reality  other  than  phenomena  is  once 
made,  so  that  only  where  we  suspend  judgment  as  to  the  causal  agent 
and  investigate  the  uniformity  of  events  in  the  abstract  do  we  distin- 
guish evidentially  or  otherwise  between  the  nomological  and  the  aetio- 
logical  problem.  This  is  in  the  critical  and  systematic  procedure  of 
investigation  where  the  cause  is  less  evident  than  the  fact  and  law  of 
phenomena.  But  quite  as  often  the  evidential  solution  of  the  one  is 
or  indicates  the  solution  of  the  other.  Hence  in  actual  method  the 
phenomenological  and  the  noumenological  problems  may  go  together, 
though  this  is  not  necessarily  and  in  all  instances  the  case.  It  depends 
wholly  upon  the  particular  metaphysical  problem  concerned.  One 
stage  of  it  may  be  assumed  before  the  nomological  investigation  begins 
and  another  may  be  consequent  upon  its  solution  or  coexistent  with  it. 

It  may  be  necessary  to  define  and  explain  a  little  more  clearly  cer- 
tain aspects  of  the  noumenological  problem  which  I  have  not  men- 
tioned, and  which  will  serve  to  justify  the  recognition  of  it  as  an  object 
of  rational  interest.  It  will  be  observed  that  I  have  divided  it  into  the 
aetiological  and  ontological  questions,  or  those  of  efficient  and  material 
causation,  the  term  "noumenological"  standing  for  cause  in  general. 
This  implies  that  I  here  use  the  term  ' '  cause  "  as  a  genus  for  two  types 
of  explanatory  reality,  the  aetiogenetic  and  the  ontogenetic,  the  origina- 
tive and  constitutive.  The  significance  of  this  will  appear  when  we 
remark  the  way  in  which  all  metaphysical  beliefs  arise. 

Facts  or  "  phenomena "  suggest  something  to  which  they  are 
related.  It  might  be  better  to  say  that  they  "necessitate"  it,  but  it 
will  serve  all  purposes  not  to  state  it  any  more  strongly  than  "  sug- 
gestion." Moreover,  in  so  far  as  our  problem  is  concerned,  I  do  not 
care  how  this  process  comes  about  or  whether  it  is  legitimate  or  not. 
The  preliminary  step  to  the  consideration  of  validity  is  the  fact  that 
we   do  it.     We    invariably  refer  "phenomena"  to   their  causes  or 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND   PHILOSOPHY.  47 

grounds  and  the  act  involves  certain  consequences.  The  first  and 
simplest  reference  which  we  give  to  any  "phenomenon"  is  to  its 
"cause"  in  some  sense  of  that  term.  The  most  primary  conception 
of  this  "  cause  "  is  that  of  a  thing  and  the  "  phenomenon  "  is  its  prop- 
erty. This  is  a  conception  of  "  cause "  which  has  prior  value  and 
probably  has  prior  existence  to  that  of  antecedent  in  a  series  of  events. 
We  finally  name  the  thing  a  subject  or  substance,  and  the  properties 
its  attributes,  the  terms  "  property,"  '*  quality,"  and  "  attribute  "  being 
interconvertible.  The  reason  for  supposing  a  subject  or  substance  of 
any  kind  is  simply  the  fact  that  we  find  ourselves  forced  in  some  way 
to  account  for  "  phenomena  "  or  events,  as  not  unsupported  altogether 
or  as  facts  spontaneously  originating.  In  the  later  development  of 
intelligence  we  find  them  existing  in  a  double  relation.  The  first  is  in 
relation  to  a  ground  or  subject  of  which  they  are  the  action  or  function, 
property,  attribute,  etc.,  and  the  second  is  in  relation  to  an  antecedent 
or  originative  or  efficient  "  cause"  which  makes  them  occur  without 
necessarily  determining  their  nature,  this  latter  fact  being  determined 
by  the  subject  in  which  they  occur.  But  the  first  reference  which  the 
causal  judgment  makes  is  to  a  ground  or  subject.  Events  are  not  sup- 
posed to  be  groundless  or  incidents  having  no  reality  of  which  they 
can  be  modes  of  action.  For  this  reason,  good  or  bad,  we  insist  that 
they  hang  upon  something,  or  attach  to  something  of  which  they  are 
functions.  To  illustrate,  take  a  ball  in  motion.  The  motion  is  a  mode 
of  action  and  cannot  occur  apart  from  the  thing  which  we  call  the 
subject,  even  though  we  may  say  that  it  is  transmissible  from  subject 
to  subject.  It  is  a  condition  of  the  ball  that  is  an  alternative  to  another 
condition  called  rest,  the  ball  being  the  thing  that  is  capable  of  being 
in  either  condition.  The  motion  or  rest  is  a  relative  fact  that  has  no 
meaning  or  possibility  apart  from  the  thing  to  which  it  is  related  or  of 
which  it  is  a  condition.  Neither  the  motion  nor  the  rest  can  exist 
unless  it  is  a  condition  of  something  in  motion  or  rest.  The  necessity 
of  this  way  of  thinking  is  apparent  in  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence 
of  ether.  The  ether  was  posited  to  account  for  the  transmission  of  light. 
If  motion  can  subsist  apart  from  a  subject,  there  is  no  reason  for  sup- 
posing the  existence  of  an  ethereal  medium  for  the  transmission  of 
light  from  the  sun  to  the  earth.  If  it  could  possibly  be  subjectless  it 
would  transmit  itself  from  point  to  point  without  a  medium.  The 
philosopher,  therefore,  who  would  insist  upon  the  independent  exist- 
ence of  motion  would  remove  the  basis  of  all  physical  "  science,"  as 
concerned  with  realities  other  than  "  phenomenal "  coexistences  and 
sequences.     It  will  be  the  same  with  all  the  properties  of  reality  which 


4&  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

are  treated  as  modes  of  motion  in  physical  science,  and  which  are 
spoken  of  as  transmissible.  It  is  all  the  more  true  of  the  intransmis- 
sible properties  or  functions  of  reality.  They  are  also  facts  that  imply 
a  reality  other  than  themselves,  and  so  far  as  validity  is  concerned  it 
matters  not  whether  we  call  the  process  of  reference  involved  "  em- 
pirical "  or  "  a  priori."  No  man  escapes  the  problem  of  validity  by 
pretension  of  empiricism  nor  does  the  bare  fact  of  nativity  establish 
this  validity,  though  it  does  imply  inexpugnability  and  the  necessity  of 
conformity  to  its  demands.  If  that  is  tantamount  to  validity  the  fact 
will  have  to  be  accepted.  But  I  am  at  present  concerned  with  the  fact 
that  the  process  is  a  universal  one  in  the  exercise  of  human  intelligence 
and  on  that  account  requires  adjustment  to  it. 

Let  me  put  the  process  again  in  another  way.  Facts,  events, 
actions,  properties,  "phenomena"  belong  to  something,  and  this 
reference  is  the  noumenological  process  in  its  first  stage.  The  "  phe- 
nomenon "  is  transcended  in  finding  that  to  which  it  belongs  as  a  func- 
tion or  attribute,  the  subject  being  what  I  may  call  the  reflex  of  the 
conception  that  what  we  "experience"  is"  phenomenal"  and  so 
relative.  That  is,  "  noumena "  and  "phenomena"  are  relative  or 
correlative  terms.  Neither  is  legitimate  without  the  other.  To 
"  know"  one  is  to  "  know"  the  other.  We  cannot  conceive  any  fact 
as  a  "  phenomenon"  without  implying  the  existence  of  the  "  noume- 
non."  We  may  go  on  and  ask  what  this  "noumenon"  &,  and  we 
may  find  that  it  is  either  another  "  phenomenon"  or  we  may  find  that 
it  is  not  "  phenomenal "  at  all.  It  is  once  and  always  the  implicate  of 
our  discovery  that  the  given  is  not  self-explicable.  On  any  meaning 
of  the  term  this  is  the  case,  whether  it  is  conceived  as  an  "  event "  or 
as  an  "  appearance."  An  event  is  a  fact  beginning  in  time  and  implies 
an  antecedent  of  some  sort,  unless  both  science  and  metaphysics  are  to 
be  rejected.  An  "  appearance "  is  the  presentation  of  some  reality, 
unless  it  is  an  illusion,  and  even  this  has  no  meaning  unless  a  reality 
is  granted  for  determining  its  nature  as  an  illusion.  But  this  aside, 
the  "  appearance  "  is  the  presentation  of  something,  whether  it  is  of  the 
nature  apparent  or  not,  and  we  do  not  escape  metaphysical  implica- 
tions by  calling  any  thing  a  mere  "  phenomenon."  If  it  were  not  a 
relative  term  the  case  might  be  otherwise.  But  it  denotes  either  a 
related  or  an  unrelated  fact.  If  it  denotes  a  related  fact,  it  implies  a 
"  noumenon  "  ;  if  it  denotes  an  unrelated  fact,  it  is  itself  the  "  noume- 
non," so  that  we  must  either  draw  no  distinction  between  the  terms 
or  we  must  grant  that  "  noumenon  "  is  just  as  legitimate  a  term  as 
"phenomenon,"   and  that   one   is  just   as    much    "known"   as    the 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  49 

other.  What  is  absurd  in  the  case  is  to  say  that  one  is  "  un- 
known "  and  then  to  limit  this  "  known  "  by  that  which  is  nothing  for 
u  knowledge  "and  to  exclude  the  correlate  from  that  which  is  avow- 
edly relative  ! 

Accepting,  then,  as  both  necessary  and  as  the  first  stage  of  reflec- 
tion that  a  "  noumenon"  or  subject  is  required  by  what  we  regard  as 
"  phenomena,"  functions,  properties,  etc.,  no  matter  whether  it  is 
more  than  the  subject  of  consciousness  or  not,  we  have  satisfied  the 
demand  for  a  "  cause  "  of  some  kind.  At  the  outset  we  do  not  require 
to  distinguish  in  the  case,  but  only  to  see  that  the  admission  of  "  phe- 
nomena "  involves  a  subject  or  ground.  Now  if  there  is  only  one 
cause,  subject,  substance,  or  "noumenon"  in  the  universe,  as  with 
the  Eleatics  and  Spinoza,  all  multiplicity  is  "  phenomenal  "  or  modal. 
We  should  have  to  explain  every  event  in  that  case  precisely  as  Spin- 
oza did,  namely,  as  a  mode  of  action  by  the  Absolute.  The  efficient 
cause  would  be  the  absolute  and  there  would  either  be  no  occasion  for 
assuming  a  material  cause  or  such  a  cause  would  be  practically  con- 
vertible with  the  efficient  and  express  the  nature  of  the  action  without 
implying  either  identity  or  difference  of  any  kind  as  compared  with 
the  subject,  though  investigation  might  find  the  modes  one  or  the  other 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree.  In  this  monistic  view  we  would  always 
have  to  use  the  term  "  cause  "  to  denote  a  subject  in  action  and  not  as 
an  antecedent  event,  nor  an  antecedent  of  any  kind,  except  as  we  find 
the  subject  to  antecede  certain  of  its  acts  or  functions.  There  might 
even  be  no  change  or  progress  in  such  a  reality.  The  "universe" 
might  be  either  dead  and  inactive,  in  a  static  condition  pure  and  sim- 
ple, or  in  a  course  of  actions  that  involved  no  change  of  direction  or 
form  from  the  original  state.  In  this  case  the  subject  would  be  the 
logical  prius  of  its  attributes  or  states.  But  this  reality  might  be  the 
center  of  incessant,  or  even  only  occasional,  change  and  evolution,  the 
agent  of  events,  functions,  and  actions  that  are  free  from  both  a  static 
and  a  dynamic  inertia,  if  we  may  use  this  phrase.  In  this  case  the 
subject  would  have  to  be  regarded  as  the  temporal  prius  of  all  changes 
or  variations  from  any  given  static  or  dynamic  condition.  In  this  way, 
"  cause  "  would  acquire  a  temporal  significance  as  implying  in  some 
sense  an  antecedent  to  that  which  it  explained. 

But  for  various  reasons  the  existence  of  multiplicity  of  any  kind 
gives  rise  to  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  corresponding  multiplicity 
of  centers  of  reference,  of  subjects,  noumena,  substances,  whether  we 
choose  to  regard  them  as  ultimate  or  not.  The  main  fact  of  difference 
in  the  modes  of  the  real  is  the  cause  of  this  tendency,  though  reflection 


50  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

may  show  that  difference  of  modal  action  or  qualities  is  quite  com- 
patible with  unity  or  singleness  of  subject.  But  various  needs  of 
thought  and  action  lead  us  to  suppose  a  multiplicity  of  realities  for  the 
"phenomena"  which  we  observe,  instead  of  remaining  content  with 
the  uno-monistic  point  of  view  which  the  Eleatic  and  Spinozistic  sys- 
tems adopt.  The  simple  reason  for  this  is  that  no  proposition  so  ab- 
stract as  that  which  describes  the  nature  of  things  monistically  can 
easily,  if  ever,  be  applied  to  the  multitudinous  details  of  existence  with 
any  more  intelligibility  than  that  of  special  Providence.  As  a  conse- 
quence we  have  various  kinds  of  substance  which  we  treat  as  either 
simple  or  complex.  If  we  go  to  the  physical  sciences  we  have  the 
atoms  and  elements  for  our  illustration  of  simple  substances.  They 
represent  a  pluralistic  point  of  view,  even  if  inquiry  proves  them  modi- 
fications of  some  single  ultimate  reality.  The  terms  matter  and  ether 
are  also  more  general  names  for  substances  that  represent  a  plurality 
of  some  kind.  In  the  field  of  complex  subjects  we  have  the  many 
substantive  terms  which  classify  the  manifold  individuals  of  the  inor- 
ganic, the  vegetable,  and  the  animal  kingdoms.  "  Men,"  "  trees," 
"stones,"  "water,"  etc.,  are  illustrations  and  each  individual  under 
these  classes  will  represent  the  same  conception  carried  out  to  the 
infima  species.  I  am  not  maintaining  that  each  center  of  reference 
or  subject  is  an  absolute  of  any  sort.  So  far  as  the  present  problem  is 
concerned  they  may  or  may  not  be  this.  It  is  merely  a  fact  of  "  ex- 
perience "  that  complex  realities  are  "  phenomenal,"  transient,  or  dis- 
soluble into  elements  more  permanent  than  themselves,  and  not  a 
necessity  of  complexity,  as  the  doctrine  of  inertia  shows.  We  may 
require  from  the  facts  of  change  to  reduce  all  complex  substances  to 
simple  forms  and  these  in  turn  to  one  ultimate  reality  which  we  choose 
to  call  the  one  absolute,  but  I  am  not  concerned  with  the  question 
whether  this  shall  or  shall  not  be  done.  All  that  I  require  to  recog- 
nize is  the  invariable  fact  that  men  have  admitted  the  existence  of  cer- 
tain multiple  centers  of  reference,  or  subjects  for  "phenomena,"  and 
we  may  or  may  not  regard  them,  according  as  facts  determine,  as  more 
than  relatively  permanent  centers  of  reference,  to  appropriate  a  con- 
ception of  Lotze  as  descriptive  of  them.  Whether  they  are  or  are  not 
more  than  relatively  permanent  is  a  problem  subsequent  to  the  question 
of  their  existence  and  of  the  fact  that  we  uniformly  conceive  them. 
I  am  quite  willing  to  grant  that  there  may  be  circumstances  under 
which  it  may  be  a  duty  to  reduce  all  multiplicity  of  centers  of  refer- 
ence to  one  ultimate  and  absolute  source,  but  if  so,  it  will  be  for  the 
reason  that  other  facts  require  it  than  the  simple  rules  which  induce 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  51 

us  to  set  up  the  relatively  permanent  centers  which  are  most  closely- 
connected  with  common  experience. 

But  it  is  this  fact  that  we  postulate  or  accept  the  existence  of  mul- 
tiple subjects  of  "  phenomena,"  whether  permanent  or  transient,  that 
gives  rise  to  a  new  problem  in  causality,  and  whether  we  choose  to 
treat  these  multiple  subjects  as  simple  or  complex,  as  individual  atoms 
or  as  a  combination  of  them  into  collective  wholes.  What  such  a 
multiplicity  of  centers  of  reference  implies  is  not  merely  the  existence 
of  subjects  of  attributes  evolving  changes  in  themselves  by  various 
modes  of  metamorphosis  of  a  spontaneous  sort,  but  a  system  of  rela- 
tions between  each  other.  If  these  relations  consist  of  nothing  but 
time  and  space  we  should  have  nothing  but  a  "  universe,"  or  better  a 
multiverse,  of  chaos,  in  so  far  as  the  actions  of  these  centers  of  refer- 
ence were  related  to  each  other.  But  if  there  exist  between  these 
centers  of  reference,  simple  or  complex,  any  sort  of  interaction,  reci- 
procity of  activity,  commercium,  or  influence  on  each  other,  it  would 
depend  on  the  nature  of  this  action  to  determine  whether  some  sort  of 
order  could  not  be  gotten  into  the  multiverse  of  realities  making  it  a 
universe  of  some  kind,  that  is,  giving  it  at  least  an  aetiological  unity, 
if  its  ontological  unity  had  to  be  held  in  abeyance.  It  is  uniformly 
accepted  that  some  such  interaction  exists,  and  this  relation  has  been 
expressed  by  the  term  "  cause,"  so  that  the  notion  has  come  to  indi- 
cate both  the  subject  which  initiates  or  supports  modal  changes  in  it- 
self and  the  subject  which  initiates  modal  changes  in  anothor  subject 
by  an  influence  from  without.  In  both  we  have  the  idea  of  efficient 
cause,  that  of  instigating  the  occurrence  of  an  event.  In  one  it  is  that 
of  initiating  an  event  in  the  subject  itself,  and  in  the  other  it  is  that  of 
initiating  an  event  in  another  subject.  In  both  the  primary  conception 
of  "  cause  "  is  that  of  a  subject  acting. 

But  just  at  this  point  another  complication  in  the  conception 
of  causality  arises.  The  evidence  for  the  existence  of  any  subject, 
substance,  atom,  reality,  or  noumenon  is  the  occurrence  of  an  event, 
its  action  or  function.  If  the  action  originates  in  the  subject  itself 
the  evidence  can  be  realized  only  by  direct  knowledge  of  the  fact 
or  by  the  knowledge  of  circumstances  that  prevent  the  reference  of  it 
to  an  external  subject.  If  there  be  any  reason  to  seek  the  center  of 
reference  for  the  initiation  of  the  fact  realized  in  the  subject  experienc- 
ing it  the  causal  action  will  be  so  attributed,  and  if  there  be  reason  to 
seek  it  in  an  external  subject  the  judgment  will  so  act.  But  in  both 
cases  functional  action  or  "  phenomena  "  of  some  kind  must  be  the 
evidence  of  the  particular  center  of  reference  adopted.     In  the  process 


52  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  intellectual  development  our  internal  states  come  to  be  the  evidence 
of  subjective  reference  and  certain  coexistences  and  sequences  of  another 
sort  present  the  evidence  of  objective  reference.  I  am  not  concerned 
at  present  with  the  validity  of  this  distinction  but  with  the  fact.  These 
coexistences  and  sequences,  "  phenomena,"  modes  of  activity,  func- 
tions, etc.,  are  quite  analogous  in  their  suggestion  of  causal  imputation 
to  any  that  require  the  supposition  of  the  subject  knowing  them.  They 
have  their  meaning  determined  by  an  objective  imputability,  implying 
a  subject -object,  and  we  have  the  two-fold  type  of  cause  indicated 
previously  in  the  ideas  of  a  subject  and  object  or  two  objects  or  two- 
subjects  related  to  each  other  in  commercium.  But  as  the  determination 
of  these  coexistences  and  sequences  for  evidence  is  the  first  problem  of 
all  investigation,  and  as  the  coexistences  and  sequences  coincide  evi- 
dentially with  their  subjects  as  facts  and  involve  the  same  relations  in 
space  and  time  as  their  subjects  there  has  been  the  tendency  to  identify 
the  antecedent  "phenomenon"  with  the  "  cause,"  abstracting  from  the 
subject,  because  we  abstract  from  the  subject  in  which  the  effect  takes 
place  and  which  is  the  consequent.  Thus  we  come  to  think  of  events- 
as  causes  and  effect,  in  abstraction  of  their  subjects  which  in  reality  are 
the  true  causes  while  the  effect  may  be  either  modal  or  substantive. 
What  in  reality  takes  place  is  that  one  subject  is  supposed  to  act  on 
another,  not  that  one  event  produces  another,  though  the  formula  for 
expressing  it  involves  the  representation  of  the  relation  in  terms  of  the 
coexistences  and  sequences  as  events  which  are  the  evidence  of  noumenal 
realities,  the  tendency  to  this  representation  being  caused  by  the  fact 
that  events  in  A  produced  by  an  external  cause  B  are  conceived  in  ab- 
straction of  A  in  so  far  as  their  occurrence  is  concerned  and  so  are 
thought  of  only  as  initiated  facts  independently  of  their  nature,  as 
affected  by  their  being  constitutively  acts  of  A.  Hence  the  habit  of 
abstracting  A  in  our  conception  of  the  effect  as  an  event  related  to  an 
antecedent  leads  to  the  abstraction  of  B  in  the  "  cause,"  and  in  so  far 
as  the  evidential  problem,  the  ratio  cognoscendi,  is  concerned  this  is 
correct.  But  the  ratio  fiendi  requires  us  to  take  account  of  B  as  the 
ratio  essendi  requires  us  to  take  account  of  A,  the  one  expressing  the 
initiating,  the  other  the  qualitative  "  cause."  But  the  evidential  concep- 
tion of  the  case  leads  to  what  has  been  called  "  empirical"  causation, 
the  uniformity  of  coexistence  and  sequence.  But  this  is  in  fact  not 
"  causation  "  of  any  kind.  It  expresses  nothing  but  the  fact  of  temporal 
relation,  whether  regular  or  irregular,  and  never  represents  or  includes- 
the  idea  either  of  efficiency,  that  is,  productiveness,  or  of  transmission 
from  subject  to  subject.     This  is  clear  from  the  persistent  statement  of 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  53 

Kant  and  others,  and  clearly  admitted  by  Hume,  that  "causality" 
■expresses  necessary  connection,  something  more  than  factual  relation 
which  is  all  that  "  empirical"  causality  can  denote.  Kant's  funda- 
mental doctrine  that  we  "  know"  only  "phenomena"  prevented  him 
from  having  anything  else  but  "  empirical  "  causation,  in  spite  of  his 
definition  of  causality  as  implying  more  than  mere  factual  relation  : 
for  it  is  perfectly  clear  from  his  own  statement  and  that  of  Hume,  as 
well  as  the  reflective  conduct  of  all  men,  that  necessary  connection  is 
more  than  factual,  and  that  it  transcends  the  "  phenomena"  to  which 
it  supplies  the  reason  for  their  nexus.  It  is  itself  quite  as  noumenal 
in  that  sense  as  substance  or  the  idea  of  a  subject.  Kant  therefore 
had  no  right  to  the  conception  as  a  necessary  datum  of  his  system,  and 
it  is  just  as  apparent  that  in  his  unguarded  moments  he  conceived  the 
matter  as  coexistence  and  sequence,  and  nothing  more,  simply  using 
the  terms  "  necessary"  and  "  cause"  where  a  more  consistent  thinker 
would  have  used  the  term  "  uniform  "  without  the  implication  of 
inevitableness.  Hume's  doctrine  was,  of  course,  rendered  absurd  by 
his  own  conduct.  After  telling  us  sceptically  that  the  idea  of  "  cause  " 
was  an  illegitimate  one,  on  the  basis  of  the  premises  of  Locke  and 
Berkeley,  he  admits  that  we  have  it  in  the  form  of  necessary  con- 
nection, which  experience  does  not  contain.  Then  in  the  face  of  his 
limitation  of  "  knowledge "  or  valid  ideas  to  "experience"  and  the 
-exclusion  of  causality  from  legitimate  recognition  while  admitting  that 
we  have  it  as  a  fact,  he  proceeds  to  explain  the  origin  of  the  idea  from 
association  !  If  he  had  said  that  it  was  nothing  more  than  association 
and  denied  that  we  really  had  any  conception  of  necessary  as  distinct 
from  factual  connection,  there  would  have  been  less  ground  to  criticize 
him.  But  he  cannot  be  defended  on  the  ground  that  this  was  what  he 
meant,  because  he  explicitly  indicates  that  the  necessary  connection  is 
something  not  given  in  "  experience,"  and  while  it  is  a  pseud-idea  it 
is  caused  by  association,  produced  by  it.  Hume  was  too  much  of  a 
philosopher  to  remain  in  the  position  of  scepticism  and  had  to  use  the 
idea  of  causality  to  explain  its  existence  in  consciousness  while  he 
denied  its  legitimacy  !  In  this  he  clearly  transcends  association  by  the 
conception  of  production  which  implies  more  than  coexistence  and 
sequence,  as  he  is  accounting  for  a  fact  by  something  that  does  not 
contain  it,  while  insisting  that  it  shall  contain  this  if  it  is  to  be 
legitimate. 

However  we  choose  to  denominate  this  "  cause,"  or  necessary  con- 
nection, whether  as  efficient,  occasional,  or  material,  an  influence  or 
an  injluxus  physicus,  it  is  some  sort  of  power  to  initiate  in  another 


54  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

subject  the  event  that  demands  an  explanation,  or  even  to  initiate  it  in  the 
subject  of  it.  It  distinguishes  the  dissolvable  from  the  indissolvable 
associations  and  so  represents  something  which  transcends  mere  "  phe- 
nomena." I  do  not  care  how  we  get  it,  or  whether  we  call  it  an 
intuition,  a  priori  "  conception,"  category,  or  functional  mode  of  con- 
sciousness, or  other  name  indicating  an  inexpugnable  datum  of  thought. 
It  is  there  as  an  ineradicable  fact,  quite  as  compulsory  in  its  convic- 
tional  power  as  our  apprehensions  when  they  occur,  though  not  having 
the  same  communicable  nature  as  they  and  is  also  liable  to  inferential 
complications  when  the  cause  is  to  be  made  definite.  But  its  incommu- 
nicable character  is  the  important  point  to  remark.  All  sensory  con- 
ceptions have  that  character  which  enables  us  to  point  to  them  when 
they  produce  their  own  evidence  in  the  "  experience  "  of  other  persons, 
but  unless  others  can  see  the  fact  of  a  causal  nexus  in  any  instance  it 
is  not  demonstrable  or  communicable.  This  is  strictly  true  of  all  facts 
of  "experience,"  as  we  shall  see  later,  but  it  is  more  especially  true 
of  causality  and  substance  than  it  is  of  the  "  phenomena"  which  evi- 
dence them,  inasmuch  as  their  transcendency  involves  that  kind  of  a 
mental  act  for  the  perception  of  them  that  is  required  to  see  a  ratioci- 
native  conclusion  in  geometry  when  the  Euclidean  figures  are  merely 
apprehensions.  It  is  easy  to  show  what  we  mean  by  a  triangle  and 
we  may  make  this  clear  to  consciousness  and  fail  utterly  to  secure  the 
perception  of  the  mathematical  truths  that  it  embodies.  These  can 
only  be  seen,  not  communicated  or  pointed  out  in  apprehension.  The 
most  important  point  to  remark,  however,  is  the  fact  that  the  "  cause  " 
is  a  noumenal  fact  in  its  nature  and  is  implied  by  the  circumstance 
that  the  mind  refuses  to  permit  the  occurrence  of  an  event  to  explain 
itself,  and  in  one  form  or  another  seeks  the  explanation  in  something 
else  whether  an  event  or  thing,  though  in  the  last  analysis  it  is  always 
a  thing  that  is  implied,  if  only  as  the  ground  of  the  fact  which  is 
treated  as  the  "  empirical  "  cause. 

But  where  the  conception  of  cause  was  not  conceived  as  material, 
that  is,  as  the  transmission  of  motion  from  subject  to  subject,  the  re- 
lation between  antecedent  and  consequent  was  conceived  as  efficient 
and  after  the  analogy  of  a  subject  causing  its  own  actions  without 
passing  over  into  them,  and  hence  the  notion  of  efficient  cause  came 
to  denote  the  influence  or  power  of  production  between  events  as,  well 
as  between  subjects  and  their  functions,  the  subject  of  the  antecedent 
being  abstracted  from  in  the  process.  The  aetiological  conception 
thus  takes  three  distinct  forms,  different  from  the  ontological,  accord- 
ing to  the  concrete  representation  of  the  source  from  which  the  effi- 


PROBLEMS    OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  55 

ciency  issues,  or  the  relation  expressed.  The  first  is  that  of  the 
subject  in  the  production  of  its  own  actions,  whether  free  or  not.  It 
is  illustrated  in  supposed  free  agents,  and  the  internal  "forces"  of 
chemistry,  though  the  occasion  for  both  may  be  externally  determined. 
The  second  is  that  of  an  external  subject  exercising  the  power  to 
initiate  or  occasion  the  occurrence  of  events  in  another  subject.  This 
is  illustrated  in  all  interaction  between  substances  or  externally  related 
centers  of  reference,  as  a  sound  produced  by  impact,  sensation  of 
color  by  impressions  on  the  retina,  or  any  mechanical  effect  of  momen- 
tum. The  third  is  that  of  necessary  connection  between  events,  upon 
which  we  have  commented.  This  is  the  usual  form  of  representing 
causality,  because  it  is  through  the  evidential  "  phenomena"  of  coex- 
istences and  sequences  that  all  objective  causal  relations  are  established 
and  made  clear.  The  existence  and  meaning  of  the  last  two  con- 
ceptions are  determined  by  the  existence,  real  or  supposed,  of  a 
plurality  of  centers  of  reference,  and  hence  involve  some  kind  of  inter- 
action, however  this  is  conceived,  as  a  condition  of  any  such  aetiolog- 
ical  and  teleological  unity  as  may  be  possible  in  a  system  of  plural 
substances.  But  the  point  to  be  most  distinctly  noted  is  the  con- 
ception of  the  aetiological  problem  which  is  involved  and  which 
represents  efficient  causality  in  different  concrete  situations,  though  the 
relation  between  cause  and  effect  is  always  the  same  in  general  and 
implies  some  sort  of  antithesis  or  distinction,  either  that  between  sub- 
stance and  mode,  or  subject  and  object  reciprocally  affected,  or  "  cause 
and  effect"  between  events.  In  discussing  aetiological  efficiency  it 
will  always  be  important  to  keep  these  three  concrete  forms  of  it  in  view. 
The  ontological  problem,  or  that  of  material  cause,  is  just  as  com- 
plicated. The  first  is  that  of  a  compound  formed  from  elements,  or 
"  stuff,"  constituting  a  whole.  This  whole  may  be  a  collective  or 
organic  compound  constituted  of  units,  the  organic,  of  units  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  and  the  collective,  of  units  of  the  same  kind.  The  ap- 
pearance of  properties  in  the  compound  not  present  in  the  elements 
offers  a  problem  for  subjective  efficient  causation,  while  those  carried 
into  the  complex  whole  from  the  elements  offer  that  conception  of  ma- 
terial causation  which  is  expressed  in  identity  of  some  kind  between 
antecedent  and  consequent,  or  element  and  compound.  This  is  called 
material  cause  for  the  reason  that  it  expresses  the  nature  of  the  result 
in  terms  of  the  antecedent  reality,  while  the  process  of  transition  or 
change,  whether  from  a  simple  to  a  complex  condition,  or  from  a  state 
not  containing  to  one  containing  certain  new  properties,  is  explained 
bv  the  efficient  or  formative  cause. 


56  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  same  distinction  is  also  necessary  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
complicated  ' '  phenomena "  associated  with  the  interaction  or  com- 
mercium  of  various  centers  of  reference,  where  composition  is  not  the 
conception  expressing  their  relation,  but  where  it  is  "mechanical" 
intercommunication.  Here  we  suppose  that  one  subject  or  center  of 
reference  influences  another  and  its  action.  This  influence  is  con- 
ceived in  two  ways.  The  first  is  the  transmission  of  motion  or  energy 
from  one  subject  to  another  and  the  retention  of  its  identity  in  at  least 
all  essential  characteristics.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  injluxus physicus, 
or  the  "  mechanical "  transmission  of  the  antecedent  condition  of  A  to 
B  in  which  it  is  simply  taken  over  as  B's  condition.  This  implies 
that  it  is  the  same  in  kind  and  the  conservation  of  energy  maintains 
that  its  quantity  remains  identical  or  the  same.  The  second  compli- 
cates "  mechanical  "  or  trans  missive  causation  with  a  modification  of 
the  effects  in  the  subject  in  which  they  occur.  In  chemistry,  for  in- 
stance, there  is  not  always  a  definitive  quantitative  relation  between 
the  qualitative  changes  in  the  subject  and  the  "  mechanical "  antecedents 
involved  in  effecting  the  proper  juxtaposition  of  the  elements  for  excit- 
ing affinitative  or  other  action.  The  same  general  disparity  is  observ- 
able also  in  certain  "  mechanical"  "  phenomena"  where  apparently 
the  process  is  only  the  transmission  of  energy.  That  is,  there  are  cer- 
tain qualitative  events  in  the  effect  not  found  in  the  cause  or  antecedent. 
In  both  these  cases  the  variations  are  not  reducible  to  the  material 
cause  alone  assumed  in  the  antecedent,  and  in  addition  to  this  the 
notion  of  the  inception  of  an  event  or  condition  in  B  which  B  did  not 
spontaneously  originate,  but  which  was  instigated  by  A,  together  with 
the  necessity  of  accounting  for  all  qualitative  changes  by  the  action  of 
B,  suggests  a  causality  which  is  more  than  material  in  its  "  mechan- 
ical "  sense,  while  this  latter  is  admitted  to  be  a  fact  also,  whether  im- 
manent with  the  efficient  cause  or  not.  Hence,  whether  dealing  with 
substances  or  modes,  we  seem  to  require  the  use  of  both  an  agtiological 
or  efficient  and  an  ontological  or  material  cause.  The  former  accounts 
for  change  and  the  latter  for  constancy  in  that  change  and  so  is  sub- 
ordinate to  the  aetiological. 

If  now  there  be  but  one  subject  or  substance  the  ontological  prin- 
ciple will  apply  to  the  exercise  of  its  functions  or  activities.  All 
changes,  I  do  not  say  all  "  motions,"  but  all  changes,  comprehending 
alterations  of  direction  in  motion,  which  in  the  abstract  might  be 
eternal,  and  qualitative  changes  or  metamorphic  "  phenomena,"  in 
such  a  single  subject  would  have  to  be  explained  aetiologically  and  on- 
tological  causes  would  either  have  to  be  made  convertible  with  the 


PROBLEMS  OF  SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY.  SI 

^etiological  or  be  applicable  only  to  the  similarities  and  differences  in- 
volved in  the  "  phenomenal "  modes  of  the  absolute.  But  if  the  centers 
of  reference  for  events  are  plural,  as  in  the  atomic  doctrine  and  in  the 
actual  existence  of  independent  complex  organisms,  the  complications 
arise  which  I  have  just  discussed,  showing  that  aetiological  or  efficient 
causes  initiative  of  events  may  apply  either  to  the  influence  of  the  sub- 
ject in  producing  its  own  modes  or  to  the  influence  of  the  object  in 
producing  or  initiating  the  modes  of  another  subject,  while  the  onto- 
logical  or  material  causes  may  apply  to  the  constitutive  qualities  by 
which  we  explain  the  similarity  and  constancy  of  kind  either  in  the 
plurality  of  subjects,  or  in  the  transitions  of  substance  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex  forms  and  the  transmissions  of  energy  from  subject  to 
subject. 

It  is  thus  apparent  that,  in  the  noumenological  problem  we  have 
the  general  conception  of  cause  at  its  basis,  with  this  dividing  itself 
into  two  more  distinct  types  and  their  ramifications.  The  first  may  be 
called  that  of  static  cause  or  substance,  and  the  second  that  of  dynamic 
cause  or  property.  The  terms  may  not  be  as  accurate  as  is  desirable, 
but  they  are  useful  to  connect  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  physics 
with  metaphysics  and  to  distinguish  between  cause  as  ground  and 
cause  as  activity  initiating  or  constituting  other  effects.  But  it  is  the 
existence  of  other  facts  than  mere  temporally  and  spatially  related 
events  that  represents  the  metaphysical  problem  and  I  have  chosen  to 
denominate  them  in  terms  of  "cause"  differentiating  it  to  suit  the 
various  forms  in  which  causality  expresses  itself  and  concentrating  all 
of  them  finally  in  the  one  center  of  reference  which  can  be  known  as 
substance,  all  else  being  modes  of  activity  either  originated  or  trans- 
mitted, or  both.  The  importance  of  thus  subordinating  the  ontolog- 
ical  to  the  aetiological  conception  will  be  apparent  when  we  come  to 
discuss  the  theological  problem.  All  that  noumenological  questions 
require  at  this  stage  of  the  discussion  is  the  acceptance  of  transphe- 
nomenal  facts  as  completing  the  process  with  which  human  thought 
begins  its  curiosity  in  regard  to  the  world. 


CHAPTER  III. 
ANALYSIS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 

Epistemology  has  always  been  regarded  as  convertible  with  the 
theory  of  "  knowledge."  But  there  has- also  always  been  two  equivocal 
characteristics  about  it.  The  first  concerns  the  conception  of  "  knowl- 
edge," and  the  second  concerns  the  function  of  its  theory.  In  regard 
to  the  second  of  these  it  has  not  always  been  made  clear  whether  it 
was  the  function  of  epistemology  to  explain  how  ive  acquired 
"  knowledge,"  the  modus  operandi  of  obtaining  what  we  know  as  a 
fact,  or  whether  it  sought  to  determine  valid  as  distinguished  from  in- 
valid mental  processes.  From  the  classification  of  the  various  prob- 
lems of  science  and  philosophy  in  the  previous  chapter  it  is  clear  that 
it  is  there  denned  as  an  orthological  science,  namely,  a  science  of 
validity  in  the  intellectual  activities  of  the  mind.  This  will  not  inter- 
fere with  the  simultaneous  study  of  the  processes  as  modes  of  acquisi- 
tion, though  it  assumes  that  this  is  wholly  subordinate  to  the  purpose 
of  distinguishing  between  the  sources  of  truth  and  error.  But  I  mean 
to  treat  it  as  primarily  occupied  with  the  determination  of  criteria  for 
the  rational  acceptability  of  certain  judgments  as  facts.  That  is  to  say 
I  shall  treat  it  as  the  determinant  of  the  conditions  of  rational  belief  and 
certitude.  I  thus  make  it  as  comprehensive  as  the  doctrine  of  "  per- 
ception," in  ordinary  parlance,  extending  to  the  inclusion  of  Logic, 
or  the  doctrine  of  Ratiocination,  and  Scientific  Method.  This  makes 
it  the  science  of  the  conditions  of  conviction. 

But  it  is  the  conception  of  "  knowledge"  that  has  given  the  most 
difficulty  in  determining  the  scope  and  function  of  the  science.  It  is 
astonishing  to  find  how  infrequently  we  observe  any  attempts  to  define 
the  field  which  is  universally  assumed  to  represent  that  of  epistemology. 
Having  indicated  that  "knowledge"  was  the  peculiar  territory  of 
epistemology  we  should  naturally  expect  some  careful  and  clear  defini- 
tion of  what  "knowledge"  meant,  or  what  it  comprehended.  But 
this  most  indispensable  of  all  preliminary  considerations  seems  to  have 
generally  been  neglected.  Kant,  for  instance,  gives  us  his  theory  of 
"  knowledge  "  without  any  definition  of  what  it  was  that  he  was  doing. 
He  now  and  then  speaks  as  if  "  Wissenschaft  "  and  Erkenntniss,  were 
the  same,  but  it  is  apparent  that  they  do  not  always,  if  they  ever  coin- 
cide. "Wissenschaft"  is  properly  the  body  of  doctrines  which  is 
58 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE   PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  59 

comprehended  in  "  science  "  as  distinguished  from  speculative  philoso- 
phy. "  Erkenntnis  "  is  properly  something  more  definitely  limited  to 
psychological  processes  and  products  that  may  not  extend  so  far  as  the 
"  knowledge  "  of  the  "  scientific"  mind.  It  is  quite  compatible  with  an 
ignorance  with  which  "  Wissenschaft  "  is  not  compatible.  It  may  be 
apparent  enough  what  Kant  means  by  it  in  isolated  cases,  but  what  it 
meant  in  his  general  theory  of  "  knowledge  "  is  not  indicated.  In  the 
discussion  of  "methodology"  he  distinguishes  between  "  Wissen," 
"  Meinen  "  and  "  Glauben  "  in  a  way  to  suggest  an  approximate  defi- 
nition of  "  knowledge,"  but  in  fact  he  makes  no  attempt  to  connect 
the  distinctions  which  he  there  adopts  with  the  earlier  discussion. 
Hence  we  are  never  sure  whether  he  intends  "  knowledge"  to  be  con- 
vertible with  "  science,"  which  includes  the  methods  and  results  of 
Induction  as  well  as  Deduction,  or  to  limit  it  to  those  convictions 
which  are  characterized  by  certitude.  The  questions  implied  by  this 
distinction  are  different  from  each  other,  though  one  may  include  the 
other.  What  we  need  to  know  is  whether,  in  the  problem  of 
"  knowledge,"  we  are  in  search  for  a  criterion  of  certitude,  a  method 
of  assured  convictions,  or  a  method  of  systematization  of  experience. 
Certitude  is  connected  with  the  "modality"  of  propositions,  and  is 
only  one  of  the  degrees  or  kinds  of  "  modality  "  :  systematization  or 
the  unification  of  experience  is  connected  with  the  principles  involved 
in  the  "  relations  "  of  phenomena  and  may  include  any  kind  and  degree 
of  "  modality"  whatever  in  judgment.  Kant  never  remarks  this  fact. 
He  is  entirely  oblivious  to  the  circumstance  that  scepticism  is  primarily 
a  question  as  to  certitude  regarding  certain  definite  issues,  and  not  at 
all  a  question  as  to  systematization.  He  ought  to  have  recognized  ex- 
plicitly what  he  seems  not  even  to  have  known,  that  Cartesian  thought 
conceived  "  knowledge"  in  opposition  to  doubt  or  scepticism  and  so 
represented  it  as  concerned  with  that  of  which  we  are  primarily  cer- 
tain. Kant's  whole  treatment  of  the  problems  of  God,  Immorality, 
and  Freedom  showed  that  he  had  acted  under  this  assumption,  but  it 
does  not  appear  anywhere  else  in  his  system.  The  problem  of  scep- 
ticism is  one  thing,  and  the  problem  of  understanding  or  intelligibility 
is  another,  but  Kant  did  not  distinguish  them  as  he  should  have 
done. 

A  similarly  misleading  conception  of  "  knowledge"  is  apparent  in 
such  works  as  that  of  Hobhouse.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  wrong,  because 
a  man  has  a  right  to  use  his  terms  as  he  desires,  provided  that  he  defines 
them.  Also  it  is  apparent  that  Hobhouse  in  his  "  Theory  of  Knowl- 
edge "  is  not  so  much  occupied  with  a  refutation  of  doubt  as  he  is  with 


60  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  fundamental  psychological  principles  of  "  science."  Hence  I  am 
not  concerned  with  implied  criticism  in  the  reference  to  his  work,  but 
with  an  illustration.  It  is  apparent  from  his  discussion  throughout 
that  he  has  in  mind  "  scientific  method"  and  not  an  answer  to  scep- 
ticism. He  comprehends  in  the  work  the  whole  subject  of  Induction 
and  probability,  which  cannot  in  any  sense  be  made  convertible  with 
the  certitude  which  the  term  "  knowledge"  so  often  implies.  Hence 
we  cannot  go  to  his  treatise  for  any  such  limitation  of  the  problem  as 
was  found  in  the  system  of  Descartes. 

It  was  the  controversy  between  Greek  and  Christian  thought  that 
resulted  in  clearly  distinguishing  between  "  knowledge  "  as  certitude 
and  "  knowledge"  as  intelligibility.  It  was  latent  in  the  dispute  between 
Plato  and  the  Sophists,  but  was  suppressed  in  the  superior  interest  of 
Plato  and  the  Greek  mind  in  the  nature  of  reality  rather  than  the  theory 
of  "  knowledge  "  in  terms  of  its  certitude.  But  the  issue  was  easily 
precipitated  by  the  exigencies  of  Christian  thought  which  proposed  a 
number  of  beliefs  involving  a  transcendental  world  whose  assumed 
existence  was  a  direct  challenge  to  reason.  The  real  or  apparent  con- 
tradiction to  "nature"  and  "experience"  in  many  of  its  doctrinal 
demands  naturally  evoked  scepticism,  and  tended  to  limit  the  concep- 
tion of  "  knowledge  "  to  the  sensible  world,  especially  as  the  distinction 
between  the  supersensible  physical  world  and  the  superphysical  or  im- 
material world  of  faith  was  not  an  easy  one  to  sustain.  Consequently 
as  time  passed  and  doubt  more  and  more  made  its  incursions  upon  the 
objects  of  faith,  the  number  of  things  which  came  within  the  purview 
of  assured  conviction  decreased,  and  the  conception  of  "  knowledge  " 
became  strongly  associated  with  the  immediate  processes  that  gave 
certitude.  This  is  clearly  illustrated  in  the  procedure  of  Descartes. 
He  tries  to  doubt  everything,  but  finds  that  he  cannot  doubt  the  immediate 
deliverances  of  consciousness  without  intellectual  suicide.  "  Knowl- 
edge" thus  becomes  convertible,  in  its  initial  stages,  with  the  imme- 
diate deliverances  of  consciousness,  whatever  they  are,  and  this  is 
followed  by  a  ratiocination  equally  valid,  when  founded  on  principles 
attested  by  some  intuitive  function.  But  certitude  is  the  characteristic 
which  defines  the  object  of  the  Cartesian  suit,  and  certain  objects  are 
assumed,  if  not  admitted,  to  have  less  assurance  for  their  reality  than 
others.  The  conception  suggests  a  graduated  system  of  beliefs  asso- 
ciated with  various  degrees  of  tenacity  with  which  they  shall  be  held. 
But  the  thought  was  not  worked  out  by  the  Cartesians  and  seems  not 
to  have  occurred  to  the  mind  of  Kant.  Yet  it  is  chiefly  this  idea  of 
certitude,  and  not  intelligibility,  that  characterizes  the  term  when  dis- 


ANALYSIS   OF   THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  6 1 


cussing  the  problems  of  scepticism.  It  is  true  that  intelligibility  is 
closely  related  to  the  criterion  of  certitude  and  probability,  but  it  is  not 
the  primary  attestation  of  truth.  It  only  expresses  conformity  to 
accepted  fact  or  truth  and  does  not  supply  either  the  primary  or  the 
ultimate  evidence  of  conviction. 

As  a  further  illustration  of  its  equivocal  import  it  should  be  re- 
marked that  "  knowledge"  has  been  opposed  to  ignorance,  to  doubt, 
to  "  opinion,"  to  faith,  and  sometimes  to  belief.  Ignorance  is  the 
mere  absence  of  ideas  and  convictions.  Doubt  is  something  in  addi- 
tion to  this.  It  represents  a  more  positive  state  of  consciousness.  It 
shows  a  consciousness  of  ideas  about  a  subject  though  it  does  not  in- 
volve belief  of  any  affirmative  kind  on  a  given  issue  regarding  it.  It 
has  both  a  positive  and  a  negative  implication.  It  is  the  absence  of 
conviction  affirmatively  and  a  tendency  to  disbelief,  or  at  least  a  sym- 
pathy with  disbelief.  Doubt  thus  involves  intelligence,  ignorance  does 
not.  Doubt  at  least  involves  a  knowledge  of  ignorance,  ignorance 
does  not  involve  this  so  distinctly,  though  self -consciousness  of  igno- 
rance is  possible  and  often  a  fact.  But  doubt  usually  involves  besides 
this  consciousness  of  ignorance  also  the  feeling  that  evidence  is  so 
wanting  in  favor  of  a  given  assertion  that  the  defect  amounts  to  a  posi- 
tive presumption  against  it.  Hence  knowledge  and  doubt  are  often  so 
related  to  each  other  that  they  may  be  conceived  as  representing  two 
opposed  opinions  on  the  same  subject,  doubt  being  the  negative  expres- 
sion for  one  of  the  opinions,  and  assumes  incertitude  where  knowledge 
implies  this  confidence  in  belief. 

In  regard  to  the  other  terms  not  much  needs  to  be  said.  The  com- 
parison between  "knowledge"  and  "opinion"  is  largely  due  to  the 
translation  of  Greek  phrases.  Opinion  in  Plato  seems  to  have  done 
service  for  "  faith"  or  belief  on  authority  and  for  conjecture  and  in- 
ductive probabilities  of  a  low  grade  of  assurance.  "  Faith"  is  a  term 
with  a  mixed  history,  at  first  meaning  only  a  quality  of  will  toward  a 
person  or  principle,  such  as  fidelity  or  faithfulness,  and  afterward 
assent  to  propositions  on  authority  or  by  mental  actions  distinct  from 
ratiocination  and  direct  experience  of  the  facts  believed.  It  was  thus 
opposed  to  "  knowledge  "  as  the  acceptance  of  authority  is  opposed 
to  the  certitude  of  personal  insight  and  experience.  Belief  is  a  term 
for  any  form  of  assent  to  truth  and  may  be  indifferently  convertible 
with  "  knowledge  "  and  assent  with  doubt,  or  with  the  sense  of  prob- 
ability only.  But  in  all  these  contrasts  "  knowledge"  is  more  or  less 
associated  with  implications  of  assurance  and  certitude  in  regard  to  the 
fact  or  proposition  alleged  to  represent  truth. 


62  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

There  is  also  another  meaning  of  the  term  "  knowledge  "  associated 
with  this  predicate  of  certitude.  It  is  the  immediacy  of  the  perception 
of  truth  in  certain  cases,  implying  that  any  given  truth,  whatever  as- 
surance we  may  obtain  for  subordinate  truths,  is  an  immediate  object 
of  consciousness,  possibly  of  "experience"  and  possibly  of  "intui- 
tion." This  conception  is  also  associated  with  the  philosophy  of 
Descartes.  What  he  realized  was  the  possibility  of  doubting  certain 
assertions  or  existing  beliefs  and  as  a  consequence  he  asked  in  the  true 
spirit  of  the  sceptic,  what  belief  is  acceptable  or  can  offer  satisfactory 
credentials  in  its  favor.  What  he  saw  was  that  neither  absolute  knowl- 
edge nor  absolute  scepticism  was  possible,  that  is,  that  we  do  not 
know  everything  and  that  we  cannot  doubt  everything.  The  impossi- 
bility of  universal  scepticism  is  apparent  in  the  single  statement  that 
the  denial  of  all  "  knowledge"  involves  the  truth  of  this  denial,  the 
"knowledge"  and  certitude  that  this  denial  is  true.  Hence,  some- 
where between  these  two  extremes  lay  both  what  we  know  and  what 
we  do  not  know  and  may  doubt.  In  the  effort  to  solve  his  problems 
Descartes  postulated  doubt  and  illusion  about  the  existence  of  God,  the 
soul,  and  the  objects  of  our  senses  and  finally  found  that  he  could  not 
doubt  the  testimony  of  consciousness.  As  indicative  of  what  its  limi- 
tations were  in  the  second  Meditation  he  asserts  that  the  mind  is  more 
easily  apprehended  than  body.  It  is  apparent  in  this  position  that 
little  or  no  distinction  can  be  drawn  between  being  a  state  of  conscious- 
ness and  "  knowing"  it  and  nothing  else.  That  is,  the  natural  out- 
come of  the  doubt  about  any  other  objects  than  consciousness  itself  as 
absolutely  certain  and  the  evident  directness  or  immediacy  of  this  was 
that  "  knowledge  "  was  more  or  less  convertible  with  immediate  or 
intuitive  perception,  with  the  implication  that  this  perception  did  not 
extend  to  the  direct  consciousness  of  external  "reality."  Thus 
"  knowledge"  implied  not  only  certitude  but  also  intuition  or  imme- 
diate "  perception,"  and  all  other  objects  were  only  mediately  or  indi- 
rectly "known"  or  certified.  One  school,  however,  extended  this 
intuition  to  the  perception  of  external  "  reality"  and  another  limited 
it  to  the  states  of  consciousness  as  such,  assuming  that  external  "  real- 
ity "  was  hypothetical  or  inferential.  But  both  agreed  that  "knowl- 
edge "  in  its  ultimate  elements  was  immediate  and  intuitive,  and  so 
tended  to  give  that  connotation  to  the  term.  Now  as  the  predicate  of 
certitude  had  previously  been  associated  with  ratiocinative  "  knowl- 
edge "  it  was  apparent,  from  the  distinction  between  intuitive  and 
ratiocinative  truth,  that  immediacy  and  certitude  did  not  necessarily 
coincide,  so  that  an  equivocation  arose  between  these  two  applications 


ANALYSIS    OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  63 


of  the  term.  This  ambiguity  is  still  further  increased  by  the  more 
general  import  of  the  term  in  which  it  denotes  intelligibility  or  under- 
standing, while  a  fourth  meaning  is  given  it  by  its  comprehension  of 
all  that  is  implied  by  "  science"  which  includes  inductive  ideas  with- 
out the  certitude  so  commonly  associated  with  the  term  "  knowledge." 

As  a  consequence  we  have  four  distinct  meanings  for  the  term 
"knowledge"  in  the  parlance  of  science  and  philosophy.  (1)  Im- 
mediacy, or  intuitive  consciousness;  (2)  Certitude,  or  absolute  as- 
surance in  conviction,  whether  intuitive  or  ratiocinative ;  (3)  Legit- 
imacy, or  acceptability  in  belief  whether  certain  or  merely  probable  ; 
and  (4)  Intelligibility,  or  systematization  by  any  process  direct  or 
indirect,  deductive  or  inductive,  whether  belief  takes  the  form  of  a 
working  hypothesis  or  a  proved  fact. 

These  four  different  meanings  of  the  term  "  knowledge"  represent 
as  many  different  problems,  or  as  many  different  solutions  of.  the  same 
problem.  It  is  one  thing,  and  a  comparatively  simple  thing,  to  indi- 
cate the  limits  of  immediate  "  knowledge,"  if  we  define  "  imme- 
diate "  as  identical  with  having  a  state  of  consciousness,  and  it  is  a 
very  different  and  much  more  complex  thing  to  explain  the  various 
processes  involved  in  both  immediate  and  mediate  "  knowledge."  It 
is  one  thing  to  indicate  the  first  stage  of  certitude  and  it  is  another  to 
show  all  the  processes  with  which  certitude  is  connected.  It  is  one 
thing  to  show  what  is  absolutely  assured  and  it  is  another  to  show 
what  is  rational  when  it  is  not  proved.  It  is  one  thing  to  have  a 
rational  conviction  and  it  is  another  to  realize  that  an  assertion  is 
intelligible  whether  believable  or  not.  All  these  are  questions  that 
must  be  answered  and  kept  distinct  in  the  theory  of  "  knowledge." 
They  require  separate  answers,  even  though  some  of  them  involve  in 
part  the  answers  of  the  other.  Thus  the  question  of  certitude  may 
include  the  problems  of  both  intuitive  and  ratiocinative  "  knowledge" 
while  immediacy  involves  but  one  of  the  two  functions.  All  this 
becomes  much  more  complicated  when  we  have  to  distinguish  between 
simple  and  complex  "  knowledge,"  which  involves  the  systematization 
and  articulation  of  many  experiences  into  an  organic  whole.  For  in- 
stance take  the  idea  represented  by  Copernican  astronomy,  or  Darwin- 
ian evolution.  This  involves  more  complicated  mental  processes  than 
the  apprehension  of  a  color,  and  consequently  requires  a  more  elab- 
orate analysis  of  consciousness  than  the  discussion  of  sensation  only. 
It  is  apparent  then  that  we  have  to  analyze  and  define  what  we  are 
trying  to  determine  in  the  theory  of  "knowledge."  That  analysis 
begins  with  the  limitation  of  the  term  "  knowledge"  or  a  definition  of 


64  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

its  various  meanings  in  order  to  learn  just  what  the  problem  is,  or  what 
the  problems  are,  with  which  we  have  to  be  occupied.  Our  solution 
will  be  simple  or  complex,  according  to  the  simple  or  complex  nature 
of  the  thing  we  are  investigating.  If  "knowledge"  is  limited  to  the 
elementary  data  of  consciousness  we  must  present  the  functions  that 
give  these  data  and  invent  some  other  term  for  the  later  acquisitions  of 
belief  and  assured  conviction.  If  it  is  any  fact  of  which  we  are  certain, 
we  may  require  to  study  the  reasoning  processes  as  well  as  the  simpler 
functions  of  sensation  and  apprehension.  If  it  is  mere  intelligibility 
we  may  be  satisfied  with  the  explanation  of  conformity  to  past  expe- 
rience whether  we  have  any  belief  in  "  reality  "  or  not.  If  it  expresses 
any  fact  or  truth  that  is  rationally  believable,  or  a  legitimate  object  of 
belief,  we  shall  have  to  include  the  whole  problem  of  induction  in  our 
exposition.  We  thus  see  that  our  answers  to  scepticism  will  depend 
on  the  various  forms  of  "  knowledge  "  that  we  have  to  consider. 

There  are  also  two  questions  in  the  definition  and  analysis  of  the 
problem  of  "knowledge"  which  are  very  closely  connected  and  yet 
require  to  be  distinguished  from  each  other.  They  are:  "  What  do 
we  '  know '  ?. "  and  ' '  How  do  we  '  know '  ?  "  The  first  question  asks, 
for  the  thing  supposed  to  be  "  known,"  and  the  second  for  either  the 
process  or  the  evidence  of  the  thing  "  known."  It  is  not  always  clear 
whether  it  is  the  process  or  evidence  that  is  meant,  in  the  latter  ques- 
tion, though  the  process  is  the  only  evidence  available  in  some  form  of 
"  knowledge."     Let  us  examine  both  of  these  questions. 

Assuming  any  of  the  four  meanings  of  the  term  "knowledge," 
there  are  still  a  number  of  distinct  problems  involved  in  what  we  may 
"know."  The  object,  of  course,  in  ascertaining  what  we  "know" 
is  to  determine  the  facts  or  rational  beliefs  which  affect  our  actions. 
All  beliefs  have  a  relation  to  conduct  whether  they  are  followed  or 
not,  and  the  desire  to  determine  what  is  rational  or  necessary  to  believe 
is  based  on  the  relation  of  these  supposed  objects  of  belief  to  conduct. 
There  is  also  another  motive  in  the  desire.  It  is  to  have  a  basis  for 
the  deduction  or  support  of  beliefs  that  may  be  under  dispute.  But  in 
any  case,  historically  the  things  that  we  were  supposed  to  "know"1 
represented  in  the  early  period  of  Greek  thought  almost  any  super- 
sensible "  reality."  Philosophy  reduced  this  to  the  physical  world 
and  when  scepticism  had  advanced  far  enough  it  reduced  the  "  know- 
able  "  to  sensations,  as  we  have  observed  in  the  Sophists.  But  a  super- 
sensible physical  world  was  too  fascinating  an  object  of  speculation  to 
be  surrendered  to  such  limitations  and  it  survived.  It  was  followed, 
as  we  have  seen,  by  the  superphysical  or  spiritual  world  of  Christianity. 


ANALYSIS    OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  65 

When  scepticism  began  again  to  limit  "  knowledge  "  and  belief,  it  first 
dissolved  the  subordinate  doctrines  of  theology  and  finally  threw  out 
those  of  God,  Immortality,  and  Freedom.  All  this  was  as  much  as 
to  say  that  we  could  not  "  know"  these  objects,  that  they  could  not 
supply  the  proper  credentials  for  rational  acceptance.  Finally  scep- 
ticism, after  assuming  the  possibility  only  for  provisional  purposes, 
discussed  more  seriously  the  limitation  of  ' '  knowledge  "  to  states  of 
consciousness  and  assumed  that  we  have  no  direct  "knowledge"  of 
the  external  world.  That  is,  one  stage  of  reflection,  or  theory,  says 
that  we  cannot  "  know  "  God,  etc.  Another  that  we  cannot  know  the 
"  soul  "  :  that  we  know  nothing  but  matter.  Another  denies  that  we 
can  "  know  "  matter.  Another  denies  that  we  can  "know  "the  ex- 
ternal "  reality,"  whether  it  be  matter  or  anything  else.  All  these 
represent  metaphysical  problems  of  different  schools  and  cause  a  vari- 
ation of  the  epistemological  question  according  to  the  special  object  of 
"knowledge"  coming  under  discussion.  The  perplexities  involved 
in  them  when  we  simultaneously  recognize  the  equivocal  import  of  the 
term  "  knowledge"  are  still  more  obvious. 

The  problem  of  what  we  "  know  "  has  been  briefly  sketched  his- 
torically alluding  to  the  chief  points  of  view  in  different  periods  to 
show  how  it  had  changed.  It  has  at  the  same  time  been  attacked  in 
different  ways.  Sometimes  the  question  of  what  we  "  know"  is  ap- 
proached with  a  view  to  showing  the  chronological  order  in  which 
certain  ideas  originate.  This  proceeds  on  the  supposition  that  certain 
"  knowledge  "  comes  later  than  another.  It  is  usual  also  to  assume  or 
indicate  that  it  is  our  "  simple  knowledge  "  which  comes  first  in  order 
and  our  "  complex  knowledge  "  which  comes  later.  For  instance,  our 
sensations  are  more  primitive  than  our  idea  of  God.  Then  again  we 
may  examine  the  simplicity  and  the  complexity  of  our  "  knowledge" 
with  reference  to  the  comparative  certitude  of  the  two  aspects  of  it, 
discussing  the  processes  concerned  without  placing  the  stress  upon  its 
evolution.  Now  it  is  quite  evident  in  either  one  of  these  modes  of  pro- 
cedure that  the  validity  of  what  we  "  know"  will  vary  with  this  sim- 
plicity and  complexity  of  it,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  processes 
and  conditions  connected  with  its  derivation.  Consequently  we  have 
complications  of  the  content  of  our  "  knowledge "  with  the  prior 
question  of  its  simplicity  or  complexity. 

The  second  question,  "  How  do  we  'know'?"  is  an  equivocal 
one.  I  have  intimated  this  in  the  allusion  to  its  demanding  either  the 
evidence  or  the  explanation  of  an  alleged  phenomenon.  We  must  ex- 
amine this  equivocation  more  carefully.     The  question  arises  always 


66  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  a  situation  which  involves  or  implies  an  argument  or  a  desire  for  in- 
formation. For  instance,  if  I  make  the  assertion  that  matter  as  we 
know  it  is  composed  of  small  indivisible  atoms,  I  may  be  asked,  "  How 
do  you  '  know  '  ?  "  If  I  assert  the  existence  of  God,  I  may  be  asked, 
44  How  do  you  '  know '  ?  "  If  I  assert  that  man  has  an  immortal  soul, 
I  may  be  asked  the  same  question.  If  I  say  that  we  have  an  immediate 
44  perception"  of  external  "  reality"  I  may  be  asked,  "  How  do  you 
'  know '  ?  "  If  I  say  that  Mr.  Smith  is  a  fraud,  I  may  be  asked  the 
question.  If  I  say  that  politics  are  corrupt  I  may  be  asked  the  ques- 
tion. In  some  of  these  cases  it  is  evidence  of  the  assertion  that  is 
wanted  and  in  others  it  is  the  explanation  of  a  fact.  Hence  we  are 
not  sure  from  the  form  of  the  question  which  it  is  that  is  desired. 
Hence  I  shall  divide  the  question  into  two  and  shall  call  them  the 
scientific  and  the  sceptical  questions.  By  the  scientific  question  I  shall 
mean  a  demand  for  the  explanation  of  a  fact  admitted  to  exist.  By 
the  sceptical  question  I  shall  mean  the  demand  for  evidence  that  the 
allegation  is  a  fact,  with  the  implication  that  inability  to  supply  this  is 
convertible  with  the  falsity  or  incredibility  of  the  assertion.  The  first 
question  admits,  the  second  disputes  the  alleged  fact.  Consequently 
when  a  man  is  asked,  "  How  do  you  '  know '  ?  "  he  is  at  a  loss  to  de- 
termine what  is  wanted  of  him.  If  he  answers  it  by  a  statement  of 
the  modus  operandi,  or  process,  of  acquiring  his  "knowledge"  he 
does  not  satisfy  the  sceptic's  desire.  If  he  gives  the  evidence  for  his 
allegation  he  does  not  explain  the  alleged  fact.  If  he  says  that  he  does 
not  know  how  he  "  knows  "  the  fact  he  is  liable  to  the  retort  of  the 
sceptic  that  he  believes  without  evidence.  For  the  sceptic  is  in  the 
convenient  position  of  sheltering  himself  behind  an  equivocal  question, 
one  that  seems  to  be  asking  for  information  in  regard  to  an  admitted 
fact  and  yet  may  in  reality  be  intended  to  dispute  it.  Whenever  the 
sceptic  puts  this  question  we  should  insist  on  knowing  what  it  means, 
whether  he  is  asking  to  have  an  admitted  fact  explained,  to  know  the 
process  by  which  "  knowledge  "  as  a  valid  fact  is  obtained,  or  whether 
he  means  to  doubt  the  alleged  fact.  If  he  means  the  latter  his  question 
may  contain  a  virtual  assertion,  and  in  so  far  as  it  does  contain  this  the 
onus  probandi  rests  on  him.  When  his  doubt  is  dogmatic,  that  is 
denia'l  of  the  alleged  assertion,  he  is  subject  to  the  rules  of  evidence, 
also.  If,  however,  he  wants  evidence  as  to  the  alleged  fact  he  is  en- 
titled to  this  satisfaction,  or  he  must  be  allowed  to  maintain  his  sus- 
pense of  judgment.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  means  to  ask  for  the 
explanation  of  an  admitted  fact  we  have  alternative  replies  without 
implying  an  impeachment  of  the  facts.     We  may  offer  an  explanation 


ANALYSIS    OF   THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  6j 

in  some  process  by  which  the  "  knowledge  "  has  been  gained.  Or  we 
may  say  that  we  do  not  know  how  we  "  know  "  and  do  not  care,  and 
that  we  are  satisfied  with  the  admitted  fact,  which  is  all  that  is  neces- 
sary for  the  regulation  of  conduct.  It  may  be  interesting  and  in- 
structive to  know  how  we  "  know,"  but  it  does  not  determine  its 
validity  to  be  able  to  assign  the  cause  or  explanation  of  the  admitted 
fact.  It  only  enlarges  the  range  of  our  "  knowledge"  or  the  rationale 
of  facts,  not  the  truth  of  them.  The  primary  question,  of  course,  is 
the  evidential  one  and  here  the  sceptic  has  his  rights.  But  he  is  not 
entitled  to  a  confusion  of  the  issue.  He  must  be  made  to  indicate 
whether  he  wants  an  explanation  of  admitted  facts  or  the  evidence  for 
alleged  facts.  Two  issues,  that  of  fact  and  that  of  explanation,  are 
concealed  in  this  equivocal  question  and  they  must  be  distinguished 
from  each  other.  If  we  are  asking  the  sceptical  question  we  must 
make  that  fact  clear.  If  we  are  asking  for  an  explanation  of  an  ad- 
mitted fact,  we  must  make  that  clear.  We  cannot  be  permitted  to 
evade  responsibility  by  reposing  in  equivocations,  or  insinuating  that  a 
failure  to  explain  discredits  a  fact. 

The  sceptical  question,  however,  when  it  does  not  involve  any  dog- 
matic implications  of  denial,  has  an  aspect  of  some  importance  in  the 
problem  of  "  knowledge."  It  is  the  difference  between  proof  and 
insight  in  the  matter  of  "knowledge"  and  the  relation  between  the 
doubter  and  believer  in  regard  to  the  kind  of  u  evidence  "  necessary  to 
make  their  convictions  the  same.  When  the  sceptic  asks  his  question 
he  is  seeking  some  sort  of  proof  for  the  alleged  fact.  He  desires 
grounds  for  conviction.  Now  "  proof"  may  mean  any  process  what- 
ever by  which  we  obtain  our  "  knowledge"  or  convictions,  whether  it 
be  "  experience,"  insight,  or  deductive  and  inductive  argument.  It 
always  stands  for  some  method  of  creating  assurance  or  rationality  for 
belief.  If  we  suppose  that  "  experience  "  or  insight  is  the  ultimate 
assurance  of  fact,  and  if  the  sceptic  continues  his  query  for  every  asser- 
tion that  we  make  as  a  premise  to  the  desired  conclusion,  thus  imply- 
ing either  that  all  "  knowledge  "  is  impossible  or  that  "  experience  " 
is  its  attestation,  we  must  leave  him  to  his  own  resources,  as  universal 
scepticism  puts  him  beyond  the  pale  of  rational  consideration  and  the 
assumption  that  "  experience  "  is  the  final  source  of  truth  releases  the 
believer  from  the  obligations  of  argument.  But  if  it  is  argumentative 
"  proof  "  that  is  expected,  we  may  employ  either  or  both  deduction 
and  induction  in  answering  the  question.  In  both  we  may  have  noth- 
ing more  than  an  ad  hominem  instrument.  Whether  we  appeal  to 
some   general  truth  which  the  interrogator  accepts  or  to  facts  which 


68  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

we  expect  him  to  accept,  we  use  an  existing  conviction  in  his  mind  to 
enforce  the  assertion  at  issue.  If  he  admits  the  premises  and  the  con- 
clusion follows,  assuming  that  formal  and  material  rules  of  reasoning 
have  been  complied  with,  he  must  either  contradict  himself  in  further 
questioning  the  assertion,  or  maintain  that  his  admission  is  merely 
pro  forma,  and  then  demand  "  proof  "  for  the  premises,  and  so  start 
the  regressive  doubts  which  ultimately  land  him  either  in  universal 
scepticism  or  the  appeal  to  "  experience."  In  this  situation,  as  indi- 
cated above,  the  believer  has  no  responsibilities,  and  if  responsibility 
exist  anywhere  the  sceptic  must  work  out  his  own  salvation. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  even  when  we  have  agreed  upon  the 
meaning  of  our  terms,  the  problem  of  "  knowledge"  has  a  two-fold 
aspect,  that  of  acquisition  and  that  of  communication,  the  method  of 
the  subject's  obtaining  it  and  the  method  of  establishing  a  similar  con- 
viction in  our  neighbor.  This  is  important  because  it  will  be  discov- 
ered in  the  last  analysis  that  no  man  can  escape  personal  responsibility 
for  the  acceptance  of  truth.  The  functions  of  ratiocinative  "proof" 
are  purely  social.  It  is  only  an  ad  hominem  instrument  for  determin- 
ing the  extent  of  the  agreement  between  the  members  of  the  social 
organism. 

In  this  connection  it  will  be  interesting  to  remark  the  reason  for 
the  limitations  of  scholastic  thought.  It  was  throughout  a  defense  of 
Christianity.  This  system  defined  clearly  the  antithesis  between 
"  knowledge  "  and  "  faith."  The  objects  of  the  latter  were  not  acces- 
sible to  either  sensory  "experience"  or  syllogistic  "  proof,"  in  the 
early  stages  of  its  intellectual  development.  But  the  incertitude 
which  inevitably  arose  from  such  a  position,  the  importance  of  the 
issues  involved,  and  the  natural  habitual  practice  of  employing  ratio- 
cinative methods  in  secular  affairs  soon  instigated  attempts  to  "  prove  " 
the  dogmas  of  the  Church.  The  study  of  "  nature,"  which  could  be 
prosecuted  only  by  the  inductive  method,  having  been  abandoned, 
there  was  left  nothing  but  the  Aristotelian  logic  for  a  resource,  and 
besides,  as  certitude  was  the  demand,  nothing  ratiocinative  would 
supply  this  but  the  deductive  syllogism.  Then  as  the  system  had 
started  with  the  assumption  of  "  faith,"  or  authority  as  the  source  of 
religious  dogmas,  its  primary  problem  was  the  communication  of 
truth  not  the  acquisition  of  it  by  ordinary  "experience,"  which  in- 
volved sensory  processes.  The  syllogism  was  the  only  instrument  at 
command  for  this  communication  and  consequently  became  the  one 
scholastic  organon  for  "  knowledge."  It  was  the  revival  of  physical 
science  and  of   empiricism  in  psychology  that  substituted  induction 


ANALYSIS    OF   THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  69 

and  personal  "  experience  "  for  authority  and  dogmatism  in  the  deter- 
mination of  truth. 

But  as  we  have  come  to  extol  "  experience  "  in  the  acquisition  of 
"  knowledge  "  it  will  be  important  to  remark  the  equivocation  in  that 
term.  If  we  limited  its  meaning  to  sensation  we  might  have  at  least 
the  appearance  of  a  clear  and  unambiguous  conception.  But  the  term 
does  not  uniformly  obtain  so  definite  and  limited  an  import.  It  is 
often  used  in  the  Aristotelian  sense  to  include  the  functions  of  memory. 
Sometimes  it  denotes  any  individual  impression,  sensation  or  state  of 
consciousness,  and  sometimes  it  denotes  a  group  of  connected  and  re- 
lated states.  Sometimes  it  is  equivalent  to  "  perception  "  and  some- 
times it  is  "perception"  with  memory.  Sometimes  it  is  a  single 
realization  in  consciousness,  and  sometimes  it  is  a  series  of  such  reali- 
zations with  an  increment  at  the  end  associated  with  memory  and  per- 
haps due  to  inferential  functions.  This  latter  may  include  all  the 
mental  processes  beyond  sensation  and  so  attempt  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem of  "  knowledge  "  by  repeating  a  word  which  had  a  narrower 
import  in  the  school  which  started  to  use  it.  In  some  of  its  uses  it  is 
hardly  distinguishable  from  "  intuition."  It  is  exposed  to  this  sus- 
picion in  all  cases  where  it  means  an  immediate  apprehension  or  reali- 
zation of  a  fact  other  than  merely  having  a  sensation.  That  is  to  say, 
it  does  duty  for  either  sensation  or  the  combination  of  sensation  and 
"  perception"  of  the  immediate  or  intuitive  sort.  The  equivocations 
in  these  various  usages  require  to  be  eliminated  before  any  clear 
progress  can  be  made  in  solving  the  problems  of  epistemology.  In  fact 
all  the  phrases  supposed  to  characterize  "  empiricism  "  have  their  con- 
troversial importance  determined  wholly  by  the  limitations  assumed  to 
belong  to  the  fact  of  "  experience."  If  this  fact,  either  by  definition 
or  implication,  involves  other  functions  than  sensation  pure  and  simple 
it  opens  wide  the  door  to  the  doctrines  which  "  empiricism  "  is  supposed 
to  dispute,  and  prevents  all  accurate  characterization  of  the  doctrines 
from  which  that  theory  derived  its  name.  It  seems  that  the  prevail- 
ing philosophical  speculation  can  never  define  in  what  specific  sense 
it  employs  the  term  and  the  consequence  is  that  its  position,  especially 
since  Kant  who  never  told  us  what  "  Erfahrung"  was,  has  no  definite 
relation  to  the  problems  of  scepticism.  It  appears  only  as  a  con- 
venient expression  to  escape  the  maledictions  of  those  who  take 
offense  at  any  term  which  assumes  other  than  sensational  functions  in 
the  process  of  "  knowledge."  "  Intuitive  "  and  "  a  priori  "  have  been 
so  discredited  or  misunderstood  that  it  is  not  reputable  to  use  them  and 
one  can  save  his  character  and  evade  unnecessary  controversy  if  only  he 


70  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

employs  the  terms  of  his  traditional  adversary  while  he  conceals  in  them 
the  meaning  which  this  adversary  is  not  acute  enough  to  recognize. 
What  the  philosopher  ought  to  remark  is  that  it  is  not  merely  the  defi- 
nition of  "  experience  "  that  is  the  primary  source  of  the  controversy, 
but  the  still  more  ambiguous  implications  in  the  phrase  "  derivation 
from  experience"  when  embodying  "empiricism"  in  it,  or  defining 
that  doctrine  by  it.  We  can  make  the  term  "  experience  "  definite 
and  clear  by  limiting  it  to  sensation  or  to  those  states  of  consciousness 
which  are  conceived  as  occurrences  and  which  are  not  interpreting 
acts,  and  even  then  have  an  equivocal  and  dubious  phrase  in  that  which 
speaks  of  the  "  derivation  of  knowledge  from  experience."  The  real 
crux  of  the  problem  lies  in  the  uncertain  meaning  of  this  last  phrase. 
The  concept  "  experience"  has  no  value  in  the  discussion  unless  it  rep- 
resents a  comparatively  simple  element  in  a  larger  complex  whole.  If 
it  stands  for  a  complex  totality  which  includes  all  that  is  at  issue  the 
statement  that  "  knowledge  is  derived  from  experience  "  only  begs  the 
question  as  a  definition  may  do.  Hence  the  only  useful  conception  of 
the  term  is  that  which  treats  it  as  a  primary  element  in  the  total  prod- 
uct of  conscious  reflection.  Hence  it  will  help  to  a  useful  analysis  of 
the  issue  if  we  limit  "  experience"  to  the  meaning  indicated  above, 
where  it  was  suggested  that  it  might  be  defined  as  any  state  of  con- 
sciousness viewed  as  an  occurrence,  an  effect,  and  not  as  an  interpret- 
ing act.  Then  the  question  of  "  derivation  "or  "  origin  "of  "  knowl- 
edge "  from  this  will  be  determined  by  various  considerations:  (i) 
whether  "knowledge"  is  a  sensational  or  intellectual  process:  (2) 
whether  "  knowledge"  is  limited  to  a  sensational  content,  or  extends 
to  a  supersensible  content  or  implication  :  (3)  whether  sensation  is 
representative  or  merely  indicative  of  an  "external  reality":  (4) 
whether  "  knowledge"  extends  to  the  "nature  of  reality"  other  than 
mental  states,  or  is  limited  to  the  mere  fact  of  it.  The  complications 
with  which  epistemology  thus  has  to  deal  appear  quite  numerous. 
They  cannot  be  unravelled,  however,  without  an  analysis  and  classifi- 
cation of  the  various  theories  of  "  knowledge"  and  "  reality."  This 
is  the  next  step  in  the  present  discussion. 

The  mere  enumeration  of  the  various  theories  of  epistemology  and 
metaphysics  will  show  what  the  complications  are  with  which  we  have 
to  deal.  They  are  sensationalism,  intellectualism,  rationalism,  scepti- 
cism, phenomenalism,  positivism,  empiricism,  experientialism,  intu- 
itionism,  apriorism,  nativism,  idealism,  realism  (psychological),  sol- 
ipsism, nominalism,  conceptualism,  realism  (metaphysical),  monism, 
dualism,  pluralism,  atomism,  monadism,  materialism,  immaterialism, 


ANALYSIS    OF   THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  7 1 

spiritualism,  pantheism,  theism,  deism,  agnosticism,  transcendentalism, 
and  perhaps  some  others. 

A  little  observation  will  reveal  the  fact  that  these  various  theories 
can  be  somewhat  systematized.  Besides  they  are  not  so  distinct  from 
each  other  in  many  cases  as  the  difference  in  name  might  suggest. 
For  example,  sensationalism  and  phenomenalism  are  often  identified. 
Intellectualism  and  rationalism  at  least  partly  coincide.  Scepticism 
and  agnosticism  are  identical  or  almost  so.  Empiricism  and  experi- 
entialism  are  quite  identical.  Pluralism,  atomism,  and  monadism  coin- 
cide in  their  numerical  conception  of  the  "  reality  "  which  they  name. 
Apriorism,  intuitionism,  and  nativism  are  closely  affiliated,  if  not  iden- 
tical. On  the  other  hand,  idealism  is  often  opposed  to  materialism 
and  to  realism  without  implying  that  the  latter  two  are  identical.  It 
is  also  at  times  associated  with  intellectualism. 

It  is  this  peculiarly  equivocal  conception  of  idealism  in  modern 
philosophy  that  suggests  the  radical  distinction  which  I  mean  to  adopt 
between  epistemological  and  metaphysical  theories.  This  distinction 
should  be  apparent  from  the  discussion  of  the  two  questions,  "  What 
do  we  '  know '  ? "  and  "  How  do  we  '  know '  ?  "  I  there  indicated  that 
the  one  referred  to  the  nature  of  the  object  of  "  knowledge"  and  the 
other  to  the  process  or  the  evidence  of  it.  Consequently  I  shall  main- 
tain that  it  would  be  much  more  conducive  to  clear  thinking  if  we 
should  distinguish  between  epistemological  and  metaphysical  doctrine 
in  our  conception  and  definition  of  their  theories.  In  pursuance  of 
this  consideration  I  shall  confine  idealism  and  realism  to  the  field  of 
epistemology.  The  reasons  for  this  limitation  will  appear  later.  The 
following  is  a  tabular  representation  of  the  various  theories  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  and  "  reality." 

In  this  outline  of  the  theories  of  "  knowledge"  and  "  reality"  the 
logical  method  of  division  would  imply  that  they  represent  distinct 
species,  and  to  that  extent  differ  in  subject  matter.  But  the  fact  is 
that  no  such  principle  can  be  carried  out  as  is  implied  by  the  mode 
of  classification.  I  can  only  assign  a  given  theory  an  approximate 
position  in  the  system  and  I  have  been  governed  partly  by  existing  con- 
ceptions of  it  and  partly  by  the  necessity  of  preserving  the  distinction 
between  epistemological  and  metaphysical  theories.  If  I  could  impose 
upon  each  term  the  meaning  which  the  principle  of  division  and  classi- 
fication requires  their  relation  to  each  other  would  be  clear,  and  I 
intend  that,  in  their  ideal  conception,  this  shall  be  the  case.  But  I  am 
obliged  to  recognize  that  the  current  uses  of  the  terms  do  not  prevent 
many  of  them   from  coinciding  in  at  least  a  part  of  their  territory. 


72 


THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


Thus  empiricism  and  sensationalism  have  usually  gone  together  and 
have  represented  the  same  general  philosophic  tendencies.  They  seem 
to  differ  only  in  the  terms  by  which  they  express  the  same  point  of 
view,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  may  discover  other  slight  differ- 
ences.    Again  there  is  a  close  relation  between  Lucretian  and  modern 

(  Empiricism,  Experientialism. 
(■     Historical.     < 
r.r--„         J  (.  Intuitionism,  Apriorism,  Nativism.  * 

0*>g«i.        i  (  sensationalism 

Functional. 

Idealism. 


Monistic. 

Pluralistic. 
Materialism. 
Spiritualism. 


I   Hypothetical. 

f  Uno-monistic.     Spinoza. 

(  Lucretian  Atomism. 
(.  Pluro-monistic.  < 

{ Leibnitzian  Monadism. 
f  Dualism.    Descartes. 


Psychological  Materialism. 
Pan-spiritualism.     Monistic- 

f  Theological. 
Dualistic.<  Philosophic. 

( Scientific. 


Atomism.  Also  the  quantitative  theories  of  "  reality  "  are  very  closely 
related  to  the  qualitative  theories.  The  Dualism  of  Descartes  is  iden- 
tical with  Theological  Spiritualism.  The  Uno-monistic  theory  of 
Spinoza  is  sometimes  regarded  as  identical  with  Pan-materialism,  and 
sometimes  with  Pan-spiritualism.  The  only  difference  between  the 
quantitative  and  qualitative  theories  is  that  the  former  does  not  speci- 
fically characterise  "  reality  "  as  such,  but  only  its  numerical  aspect, 
while  the  latter  denominates  by  its  terms  the  nature  of  it.  The  exact 
meaning  and  relations  of  these  will  be  discussed  later. 

But  the  most  important  question  for  examination  at  present  is  the 
relation  between  epistemological  and  metaphysical  theories  which  I 
wish  to  regard  as  distinct  from  each  other,  though  connected  with  each 
both  historically  and  to  a  certain  extent  logically.  I  refer  to  Idealism 
and  Realism  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  Materialism  and  Spiritualism  on 
the  other.  The  classification  above  places  Idealism  and  Realism  in 
the  epistemological  series  and  does  not  regard  them  as  "  ontological " 
theories  at  all.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  Idealism  has  no  such  definite 
conception  as  is  thus  implied.  It  is  in  the  conception  of  many  of  its  ad- 
vocates as  much  of  an  "  ontological  "  as  it  is  an  epistemological  theory. 
This  is  proved  by  the  uniform  antithesis  to  Materialism  which  it  is 
supposed  to  represent.  Many  of  our  philosophers  speak  of  Material- 
ism and  Idealism  as  if  they  were  mutually  incompatible.     It  is  regarded 


ANALYSIS   OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  73 

as  a  sufficient  refutation  of  Materialism  to  advocate  Idealism.  If  a 
man  wishes  to  so  define  it,  there  can  be  no  objection.  But  two  things 
are  noticeable  which  show  that  we  cannot  thus  regard  it  and  at  the 
same  time  assume  that  we  are  dealing  with  the  same  conception  in  re- 
lation to  other  theories.  They  are  :  (i)  that  Idealism  has  generally 
been  opposed  to  Realism,  and  (2)  that  its  adherents  have  not  displayed 
any  desire  to  identify  it  with  Spiritualism  of  any  kind,  unless  it  be  Pan- 
spiritualism.  Now  Realism  is  not  and  has  not  been  a  metaphysical 
theory.  Its  advocates  have  not  identified  it  with  Materialism,  but  have 
as  often,  if  not  more  frequently  been  Spiritualists  of  the  dualistic  sort. 
Realism  has  been  the  doctrine  which  maintained  that  the  mind  can 
transcend  its  states  in  its  "  knowledge,"  that  it  can  "know  "some- 
thing else  than  its  own  states,  that  it  can  "  perceive"  or  posit  an  ex- 
ternal "  reality"  as  the  cause  of  its  sensations.  It  is  not  necessarily 
involved  in  any  assertion  of  the  nature  of  that  "  reality."  That  issue 
may  remain  for  decision  after  the  fact  of  external  existence  has  been 
asserted.  It  is  true  that  usually  the  realists  have  also  pronounced  for 
the  material  nature  of  their  "  reality  "  and  possibly  all  materialists  have 
been  realists,  but  it  has  not  been  the  primary  motive  of  the  realistic 
philosophy  to  identify  the  judgment  that  an  external  "reality"  is 
"  known  "  with  the  judgment  as  to  what  that  "  reality  "  is.  The  main 
object  of  the  doctrine  was  to  justify  the  belief  in  something  else  than 
the  subject's  own  mental  states.  It  was  primarily  interested  in  refut- 
ing Solipsism.  Consequently  Realism  has  never  properly  been  an 
"  ontological "  theory,  however  closely  it  may  have  been  associated 
with  ontological  views.  Now  if  Idealism  is  to  be  conceived  as  opposed 
to  this  conception  it  must  represent  a  denial  of  the  possibility  of 
"  knowing"  any  "  reality  "  beyond  the  subject's  own  states.  It  must 
limit  ' '  knowledge  "  to  subjective  phenomena  and  deny  the  possibility 
of  transcending  these.  This  conception  of  it  does  not  involve  an  ex- 
planation of  "  phenomena,"  but  a  mere  cognition  of  them.  The  ma- 
terialistic theory  is  one  that  explains  or  attempts  to  explain  "  phenom- 
ena "  as  modes  or  functions  of  matter.  To  oppose  that  theory  we 
must  assume  that  there  are  "  phenomena  "  which  it  does  not  explain. 
Hence  to  oppose  both  Realism  and  Materialism  by  the  doctrine  of 
Idealism  we  must  assume  both  a  cognitive  and  an  explanatory  function 
for  the  idealistic  theory  at  the  same  time,  though  this  would  not  be  so 
objectionable  if  Realism  and  Materialism  were  identical.  Consequently 
I  must  insist  on  a  clear  limitation  of  the  part  to  be  played  by  a  theory 
of  Idealism  when  it  is  or  should  be  apparent  that  a  theory  of  "  knowl- 
edge" and  a  theory  of  "  reality"  are  not  necessarily  convertible. 


74  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  history  of  the  term  shows  clearly  how  it  became  ambiguous. 
It  was  first  applied  to  the  philosophy  of  Plato  in  which  the  Greek 
word  "  idea"  was  employed  to  characterize  the  "  form  "  of  "  reality'* 
that  was  permanent  and  so  did  not  characterize  "  phenomena"  at  all. 
In  modern  times  many  of  our  idealists  limit  "  knowledge"  to  "  phe- 
nomena "  and  on  that  ground  proclaim  their  Idealism.  The  point  of 
view  and  the  assumptions  determining  present  philosophic  tendencies 
have  completely  changed  since  Plato.  His  "  ideas  "  in  fact  could  not 
be  distinguished  from  Epicurean  atoms  in  some  of  their  characteristics. 
They  were  eternal  and  they  were  supersensible.  The  difference  was 
that  the  atoms  were  substances  and  the  "ideas"  were  characteristics, 
though  permanent  modes  of  things.  The  term  was  not  associated 
with  consciousness  as  in  modern  thought.  Its  only  approximation  to 
anything  like  modern  conceptions  was  in  the  fact  that  "  ideas"  were 
ascertained  by  mental  processes  above  the  senses,  and  the  internal  and 
external  worlds,  "  subject  and  object,"  consciousness  and  physical 
motion,  were  the  same  in  kind,  so  that  the  phrase,  "thought  and 
reality  are  identical,"  could  well  be  used  to  represent  the  point  of  view 
of  Plato,  while  the  effect  of  Nominalism  and  the  non-representative 
nature  of  consciousness  in  modern  psychology,  with  its  antithesis 
between  "  subject  and  object,"  has  been  to  limit  "  ideas  "  to  states  or 
conceptions  of  consciousness  and  not  to  extend  the  application  of  the 
term  to  the  universal  and  permanent  qualities  of  any  "  reality"  what- 
ever. Consequently  there  is  little  more  than  an  etymological  lineage 
between  Platonic  and  modern  Idealism. 

Again  ever  since  Berkeley  and  Collier  the  term  Idealism  has  assumed 
a  meaning  determined  by  the  special  exigencies  of  the  system  which 
proclaimed  itself  as  such.  Berkeley's  system  is  called  "  subjective  " 
Idealism,  Kant's  "transcendental"  Idealism,  Fichte's  "subjective" 
again,  though  not  identical  with  Berkeley's,  Schelling's  "objective" 
Idealism,  and  Hegel's  "  absolute"  Idealism,  with  the  tendency  of  later 
writers  to  conceive  Hegel's  system  as  "objective"  Idealism  without 
wholly  conceiving  it  as  the  same  as  Schelling's.  In  this  variety  of 
different  or  contradictory  meanings  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  any  useful 
conception  of  a  general  sort  for  the  term  in  philosophical  problems. 
The  general  import  of  it  is  too  abstract  to  deal  with  the  real  questions 
at  issue  between  separate  schools.  When  it  denotes  equally  positions 
that  assume  an  antithesis  and  positions  that  assume  an  identity  between 
"  thought "  and  "  reality,"  it  is  certainly  not  clear  and  concrete  enough 
to  suggest  any  fruitful  implications.  This  is  especially  evident  in  the 
disposition  of  many  idealists  to  insist,  when  confronted  with  the  diffi- 


ANALYSIS   OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  75 

culties  of  denying  what  the  realists  have  contended  for  to  maintain 
that  Idealism  and  Realism  are  not  opposed  to  each  other  but  quite 
reconcilable.  If  this  be  the  case  there  is  no  special  importance  attach- 
ing to  the  zealous  defence  of  Idealism,  as  under  such  an  assumption 
it  can  have  no  power  to  settle  any  problem  whatever  as  affected  by 
the  very  evident  issues  connected  with  sense  perception.  The  only 
hope  of  clear  thinking  is  to  define  Idealism  and  Realism  in  sufficiently 
definite  terms  to  indicate  what  this  issue  is.  This  has  been  done  for 
us  historically  by  various  men,  one  class  of  whom  has  contended  that 
we  can  directly  "  know  "  an  external  world  and  the  other  that  we  can 
only  "  know"  it  indirectly  or  not  at  all.  There  is  a  point,  however, 
where,  in  spite  of  this  opposition  the  two  schools  practically  agree. 
The  hypothetical  realist  admits  that  we  do  not  intuitively  "  perceive  " 
external  "  reality,"  and  contends  that  we  can  "  know"  it  only  infer- 
entially.  This  position  would  coincide  with  what  I  have  called 
"objective"  Idealism  in  the  tabular  classification,  so  that  a  clear 
opposition  is  found  only  between  "  subjective  "  Idealism,  or  Solipsism, 
and  intuitive  Realism,  where  the  issue  between  the  limitation  of 
M  knowledge"  to  the  subject's  own  states  and  its  extension  to  an  ex- 
ternal or  objective  "  reality  "  is  defined  with  apparent  clearness,  the 
question  as  to  the  nature  of  either  or  both  of  them  being  left  open 
for  metaphysics  to  further  determine.  Without  this  distinction  I 
would  maintain  that  there  is  no  reason  for  the  assumption  of  a  differ- 
ence between  the  two  schools  in  their  epistemology  but  only  in  their 
"ontology,"  which  depends  on  other  assumptions  than  those  necessary 
to  test  the  compass  or  limits  of  "  knowledge."  In  deciding  the  range 
of  my  "  knowledge"  I  either  assume  the  "  nature  "  of  the  thing  pre- 
sumptively "  known  "  or  I  leave  that  entirely  in  suspense.  Whether 
' '  knowledge  "  does  or  does  not  extend  beyond  the  states  of  the  subject 
to  the  "  perception  "  of  the  object  is  one  problem  and  whether  it  at  the 
same  time  cognizes  and  posits  the  "  nature,"  material  or  spiritual,  of 
either  subject  or  object  is  another  problem.  As  for  myself  the  assertion 
of  what  a  thing  is  is  distinct  from  the  assertion  that  it  is.  I  may  have 
reason  to  affirm  or  believe  that  "  knowledge  "  is  either  limited  to  "  phe- 
nomena" or  extends  to  "  reality  "  other  than  "  phenomena,"  and  yet 
be  ignorant  as  to  how  I  should  characterize,  in  any  other  terms,  the 
thing  involved  in  my  "  knowledge." 

The  consequence  of  all  this  analysis  is  that  I  shall  assume  that 
the  epistemological  and  the  noumenological  problems  are  distinct 
from  each  other,  even  if  we  admit,  as  I  do,  that  the  epistemological 
question  comes  first  and  prepares  the  way  for  clearer  discussion  of 


>j6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  noumenological.  I  merely  insist  that  the  doctrine  is  not  pre- 
determined by  the  epistemological.  I  shall  in  all  discussions  of  the 
issues  of  philosophy  use  the  terms  Idealism  and  Realism  as  opposed 
points  of  view,  in  one  of  their  meanings  at  least,  and  Materialism  and 
Spiritualism  as  opposed  doctrines  in  Metaphysics.  So  far  as  the  con- 
ception of  these  terms  is  concerned,  I  shall  assume  that  an  idealist  may 
be  either  a  materialist  or  a  spiritualist  and  the  same  with  the  realist. 
Likewise  I  shall  assume  that  a  materialist  may  be  either  an  idealist  or 
a  realist,  and  the  same  with  the  spiritualist.  I  merely  use  the  term 
"  Spiritualism  "  to  mean  the  doctrine  that  maintains  the  existence  of 
something  immaterial  in  the  world.  I  am  simply  following  the  example 
and  usage  of  Sully  in  his  recent  work.  I  mean  therefore  to  divide  the 
field  of  epistemological  investigation  between  idealistic  and  realistic 
claims  for  the  sake  of  studying  the  facts  in  the  light  of  one  or  the  other 
point  of  view,  and  for  the  same  purpose  to  divide  the  "  noumenological  " 
or  metaphysical  field  into  the  materialistic  and  spiritualistic  claims. 

I  shall  not,  however,  at  this  stage  of  the  discussion  enter  into  the 
merits  of  any  of  these  doctrines.  I  have  been  concerned  only  with  so 
much  of  the  history  and  analysis  of  fundamental  conceptions  as  would 
indicate  how  the  complexities  of  these  various  problems  should  be  ap- 
proached. By  thus  indicating  the  order  and  nature  of  the  problems 
to  be  discussed  we  are  prepared  to  do  one  thing  at  a  time  in  the  investi- 
gation before  us.  This  whole  subject  has  its  preliminaries  and  these 
are  the  clear  definition  of  the  issue  to  be  decided.  It  is  not  enough  to 
thresh  over  the  old  straw  in  terms  that  either  beg  all  questions  or  that 
show  no  intelligent  conception  of  the  real  perplexities  which  the  phil- 
osophical student  has  to  face  in  the  controversies  connected  with  the 
doctrines  suggested  in  the  classifications  in  this  and  the  previous  chap- 
ter. These  perplexities  involve  a  series  of  connected  questions  in 
which  the  answers  to  the  first  do  not  necessarily  carry  with  them  the 
answers  to  the  succeeding  ones.  "  Knowledge,"  both  in  respect  of  its 
process  and  content,  is  a  complex  affair  and  it  is  necessary  to  deter- 
mine the  elements  of  that  growth  and  the  order  of  their  manifestation. 
In  this  order  I  shall  consider  the  epistemological  as  first  and  inde- 
pendent of  the  "  noumenological"  and  as  not  determinative  of  the  result 
in  the  noumenological.  It  is  possible  also  to  discuss  the  process  of 
"knowing"  without  deciding  any  choice  between  Idealism  and  Real- 
ism, but  merely  ascertaining  how  that  which  is  at  least  called  "knowl- 
edge" is  acquired  and  regarded  as  valid.  This  last  course,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  is  the  one  that  will  be  adopted,  and  this  purpose  demands  that 
I  should  at  least  briefly  indicate  how  this  can  be  done. 


ANALYSIS    OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  77 

The  first  step  in  the  accomplishment  of  this  end,  after  indicating 
the  theoretical  problems  involved  in  the  final  results  of  discussion,  is 
the  presentation  of  the  psychological  scheme  upon  which  further  in- 
vestigation will  be  based.  In  all  discussions  of  epistemological  systems 
we  suppose  certain  primary  factors  in  the  problem.  Sensation  is  the 
first.  This  is  usually  followed  by  "  perception,"  memory,  association, 
conception,  judgment,  reasoning,  intuition,  etc.  Apprehension  often 
does  duty  for  "  perception."  In  English  psychology  all  these  acts  of 
the  mind,  said  to  be  acts  of  corresponding  "faculties"  are  supposed 
to  be  distinguishable  from  each  other  in  kind.  That  is,  they  are  as- 
sumed to  represent  distinct  functions  of  the  mind  and  so  to  be  treated 
as  separate  elements  in  the  synthetic  whole  of  "  knowledge."  But  I 
think  that  this  representation  of  psychological  "faculty"  can  be 
greatly  simplified,  and  consequently  improved  to  the  same  extent. 

If  we  adopt  a  Kantian  conception  and  divide  the  general  functions 
of  the  mind  into  receptive  and  active,  receiving  and  interpreting  func- 
tions, we  shall  have  all  the  cognitive  capacities  reduced  to  two  general 
types.  Kant  of  course  had  three  fundamental  functions,  namely,  Sen- 
sibility, Understanding  and  Reason.  The  last  two  should  be  reduced 
to  judgment,  as  I  propose  to  do  here.  We  should  then  have  sensibility 
and  judgment  as  the  two  general  functions  implicated  in  "  knowledge." 
But  Kant's  conception  of  sensibility  included  Locke's  "  reflection,"  or 
self -consciousness,  the  consciousness  of  our  own  mental  states  other 
than  sensations,  while  the  term  "sensibility"  in  English  philosophy 
and  psychology  generally  is  either  limited  to  external  "  experience," 
that  is,  sensation,  or  applies  also  to  certain  emotions,  and  does  not 
connote  the  "  internal  "  mental  states.  Besides  neither  "  sensibility" 
nor  sensation  suggests  the  "  perceiving  "  or  apprehending  act  which 
is  so  necessary  to  the  conception  of  "  knowledge,"  but  only  a  relation 
to  both  the  subject  and  the  object.  Hence  I  think  it  better  to  adopt 
some  term  which  shall  comprehend  the  intuitive  functions  ascribed  to 
or  associated  with  both  sensation  and  the  consciousness  of  our  own 
mental  states.  I  shall  adopt  for  this  the  term  Apprehension  or  Intui- 
tion, meaning  thereby  the  immediate  act  of  consciousness  which  presents 
facts  of  "  experience."  A  fuller  account  of  it  will  be  given  in  later 
discussion.  But  I  shall  divide  it  into  two  forms  in  so  far  as  its  object 
matter  is  either  sensation  or  the  consciousness  of  mental  acts  other 
than  sensation.  For  purposes  of  classification  and  brevity  of  expres- 
sion I  shall  use  the  word  mentation  to  denote  the  mental  states  other 
than  sensory.  Sensation  and  mentation,  therefore,  will  represent  the 
two  "  phenomena"  or  states  of  consciousness  which  are  direct  presen- 


7S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tations,  that  is,  present  as  acts  and  as  objects  of  consciousness.  To 
these  I  shall  add  a  third  which  will  represent  a  present  state  but  a  past 
object.  This  is  Memory,  or  perhaps  more  correctly,  Recognition. 
These  three  may  be  treated  as  subdivisions  of  Apprehension  or  Intui- 
tion, or  at  least  as  different  types  of  "  phenomena"  with  which  Ap- 
prehension is  associated  as  the  simplest  function  of  "  knowledge." 

I  shall  then  embrace  all  other  intellectual  functions  in  the  term 
Cognition,  or  Judgment  in  the  widest  acceptation  of  the  term.  I  dis- 
miss Conception  as  only  a  form  of  judgment  and  not  as  a  process  in 
any  particular  unique.  Cognition  shall  represent  all  the  higher  acts 
of  the  mind  in  the  synthesis  of  "  knowledge."  It  differs  from  Appre- 
hension or  Intuition  in  this  fact  of  synthesis  which  involves  the  con- 
sciousness of  relation,  as  I  do  not  intend  Apprehension  to  imply.  I  shall 
subdivide  Cognition  or  Judgment  into  Perception,  Conperception,  Ap- 
perception, Infero-apperception  and  Genero-perception.  The  technical 
meaning  of  these  terms  will  be  considered  in  the  proper  place.  But  I 
may  remark  here  that  it  is  possible  to  treat  Infero-apperception,  which 
I  conceive  as  convertible  with  Ratiocination,  as  a  subdivision  of  Ap- 
perception. I  might  divide  Apperception  into  simple  and  complex 
apperception,  the  former  being  equivalent  to  Judgment  in  the  ordinary 
logical  sense  and  the  latter  equivalent  to  ratiocination,  both  partaking 
of  the  nature  of  apperception.  The  scheme  of  mental  function,  there- 
fore, to  be  considered  in  the  theory  of  "knowledge"  may  be  sum- 
marized in  the  following  manner,  treating  them  all  as  forms  of  intel- 
lection. 

(  Sensory.      Sensation. 


(Apprehension  o 
L  Mnemonic.    Memory,  or  Recognitioi 
fcon^ption. 
Cognition  or  Judgment. 


I  Genero-perception.        Generalization. 

The  only  reservations  and  cautions  to  be  mentioned  at  present  in_ 
regard  to  this  scheme  pertain  to  the  use  of  the  word  "  sensation." 
According  to  the  principle  implied  in  its  classification  it  expresses  a 
species  of  apprehension.  But  I  have  purposely  described  the  types  of 
apprehension  in  adjectival  terms  to  indicate  that  I  do  not  wish  to 
identify  sensations  wholly  with  what  I  mean  to  express  by  apprehen- 
sion or  intuition.  We  shall  find  on  more  careful  examination  that  the 
term  "  sensation"  is  often  used  in  a  way  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
properly  "  knowing"  act  assumed  to  accompany  it  as  one  aspect  of 
the  total  consciousness  occurring  at  the  time.  But  I  include  the  term 
in  the  analysis  for  the  purpose  of  recognizing  its  fundamental  place  in 


ANALYSIS   OF  THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  79 

the  theory  of  "  knowledge."  The  main  purpose  is  to  secure  as  simple 
an  outline  as  possible  of  the  primary  functions  which  I  mean  to  dis- 
cuss in  the  investigations  of  epistemology. 

The  most  of  these  terms  I  shall  define  and  explain  technically  when 
I  come  to  discuss  the  problems  involved,  but  there  are  some  important 
conceptions  whose  import  must  be  understood  in  any  examination  of 
primary  questions.  They  are  not  terms  which  express  the  functions 
involved,  but  which  affect  the  interpretation  of  the  facts  connected 
with  these  functions,  and  hence  their  import  should  be  understood  at 
the  outset. 

When  I  use  the  terms  "  mind  "  or  "  soul "  I  shall  mean  a  subject  of 
consciousness  other  than  the  brain.  This,  however,  is  only  a  definition 
of  the  terms.  I  shall  not  intend  to  imply  by  them  that  there  is  in 
reality  any  such  thing.  The  existence  of  such  a  subject  must  be 
treated  as  a  quaesitum,  not  a  datum.  But  I  shall  use  them  to  denote  a 
subject  rather  than  a  "  phenomenon"  of  that  subject,  because  we  have 
the  term  consciousness  to  denote  the  functional  '*  phenomena  "  of  that 
subject,  and  hence  I  prefer  to  remain  by  the  historical  uses  of  those 
terms  instead  of  violently  distorting  them,  as  the  phenomenalist  does 
when  he  finds  that  he  cannot  admit  them  into  the  sphere  either  of 
"  known  "  things  or  of  "  realities  "  other  than  the  brain.  He  ought 
to  see  that  it  is  possible  to  accept  their  traditional  meaning  and  to 
deny  their  existence  as  supposed,  just  as  men  do  in  the  case  of  ghosts, 
or  hobgoblins  or  devils.  I  could  make  them  convertible  with  the  term 
"  subject  "  except  for  the  fact  that  I  shall  use  this  term  for  the  basis  of 
any  kind  of  attributes  material  or  mental.  In  psychology  and  episte- 
mology, of  course,  subject  will  always  be  synonymous  with  "  mind  " 
or  '*  soul,"  if  the  existence  of  this  be  assumed,  but  synonymous  with 
brain  or  organism,  if  "  mind  "  be  not  assumed.  That  is  "  subject "  will 
be  a  term  indifferent  to  the  theories  of  materialism  and  spiritualism 
in  noumenology  and  merely  denote  that  consciousness  has  a  ground, 
substratum,  or  "reality"  of  some  kind  of  which  it  is  a  function, 
quality,  or  attribute.  It  therefore  does  not  exclude  the  supposition 
that  the  organism  might  turn  out  to  be  this  as  the  result  of  inquiry. 
But  "  mind"  or  "  soul"  means  to  exclude  the  brain  or  organism  by 
definition,  but  I  shall  leave  the  fact  of  this  open  to  investigation  in  my 
use  of  the  terms. 

The  term  "object  "is  equivocal.  In  strict  consistency  with  the 
more  limited  import  of  the  term  "  subject "  it  should  denote  only  the 
non-ego,  or  external  "  reality."  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  may  include 
along  with  this  also  any  mental  fact  as  an  "  object  "  of  consciousness, 


8o  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  is,  a  fact  with  which  consciousness  may  be  occupied  or  which 
may  be  the  subject  matter  of  its  perceptions  and  reflections.  These 
additional  facts  as  "objects"  may  be  either  the  "subject"  of  con- 
sciousness itself,  the  subject-object  of  Hamilton,  or  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness themselves.  The  content  meaning  of  the  term  may  thus  be 
threefold,  as  described.  Which  of  them  is  intended  in  any  specific 
case  can  be  determined  by  the  context. 

The  term  "phenomenon"  is  one  that  may  give  a  good  deal  of 
trouble.  It  has  not  always  preserved  an  identical  meaning  amid  the 
vicissitudes  of  philosophic  speculation.  It  has  formed  the  basal  con- 
ception of  various  systems  without  being  as  carefully  defined  as  it 
should  have  been  and  plays  a  very  equivocal  part  in  present  thought. 
But  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  unravel  the  perplexities  incident  to  its 
general  usage,  as  I  shall  not  employ  the  term  in  the  earlier  discus- 
sions of  this  work  to  denote  anything  more  than  a  fact  which  requires 
to  be  explained  as  opposed  to  such  as  may  not  require  this.  I  shall 
not  limit  its  import  to  either  the  "  subjective,"  or  to  the  idea  of  "  ap- 
pearance," or  to  that  of  "  change."  So  far  as  epistemological  investi- 
gations are  concerned  it  may  be  any  one  or  all  of  them.  I  shall  use  it, 
until  further  discussed,  to  denote  any  fact  within  the  purview  of  con- 
sciousness, whether  subjective  or  objective,  which  requires  to  be  ex- 
plained in  some  way,  it  may  be  as  an  effect,  as  an  attribute,  as  an 
"  appearance,"  as  change  or  an  event,  whether  subjective  or  objective. 

There  is  an  implication  associated  with  the  term  "knowledge" 
which  it  is  important  to  notice.  It  is  the  supposition  that  to  be 
"  known  "  a  fact  or  thing  must  be  "  in  consciousness,"  or  even  must  "  be 
consciousness."  The  expression  that  "  knowledge  is  limited  to  our 
own  mental  states  "  has  a  tendency  to  create  a  definition  for  the  term 
"  knowledge  "  which  makes  it  convertible  with  the  limits  of  conscious- 
ness as  a  function  of  mind.  This  is  to  imply  that  to  "know"  is  to 
"  have"  a  state  of  consciousness  as  distinct  from  having  an  object  of 
consciousness  other  than  the  state  itself.  If  "  knowing"  is  "  having  " 
a  state  of  consciousness,  that  which  is  other  than  this  state,  or  transsub- 
jective,  transphenomenal,  or  objective  as  external,  is  not  "  known,"  as  a 
matter  of  course,  though  absolute  certitude  characterize  our  convictions 
regarding  it.  We  shall  have  to  discuss  this  equivocation  much  more 
in  detail  when  dealing  with  concrete  problems.  It  suffices  here  to 
remark  it  as  a  part  of  the  preliminary  analysis  of  epistemological  con- 
ceptions. 

The  term  "  reality"  is  another  which  should  have  the  same  pre- 
liminary consideration.     This  term  has  three  different  meanings  which 


ANALYSIS    OF   THE  PROBLEM  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  Si 

affect  the  problem  of  "  knowledge."  The  first  of  these  is  that  which 
is  implied  in  the  antithesis  between  the  "  real  and  the  unreal  "  which 
is  the  meaning  in  ordinary  parlance  and  of  which  a  great  deal  is  made 
by  T.  H.  Green  in  his  discussion  of  Hume  and  the  problem  of  Ethics. 
It  is  the  conception  which  many  of  our  philosophic  students  pick  up 
without  examining  its  historical  import  in  the  field  of  philosophy  and 
then  use  for  the  interpretation  of  systems  which  did  not  employ  it  in 
that  sense  at  all.  In  this  common  conception  of  the  "  real "  the  mean- 
ing is  that  of  fact,  the  actual,  or  the  existential  as  opposed  to  that 
which  is  non-existent  or  not  a  fact  of  "  actual  experience."  Some- 
times this  is  expressed  by  the  distinction  between  the  actual  and  the 
imaginary,  in  which  the  imaginary  denotes  what  is  not  a  fact  of  ex- 
ternal existence,  but  only  a  product  of  fancy. 

Somewhat  closely  allied  to  this  common  meaning  is  that  in  which 
the  term  "  real  "  denotes  one  aspect  of  the  antithesis  between  the  "  real 
and  the  ideal."  This  is  the  opposition  between  the  subjective  and  ob- 
jective, between  the  internal  and  the  external.  This  may  or  may  not 
coincide  with  that  between  the  actual  and  the  imaginary.  Both  the  in- 
ternal and  the  external,  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  may  be  actual, 
or  both  imaginary.  But  the  internal  and  the  external,  the  subjective 
and  the  objective  are  not  the  same,  even  when  we  suppose  them  the  same 
in  kind.  Hence  in  the  theory  of  perception,  ever  since  the  contro- 
versy with  Nominalism,  the  term  "  real"  has  stood  for  an  objective 
or  external  fact  or  thing  as  opposed  to  what  was  merely  mental  though 
actual.  The  more  general  meaning  of  common  parlance  was  simply 
disregarded,  not  denied.  It  was  the  exigencies  of  certain  philosophi- 
cal problems  that  imposed  a  technical  import  upon  the  term. 

This  second  meaning  of  the  word  had  grown  out  of  a  relation  to 
the  preexisting  conceptions  of  the  Platonic  doctrine.  The  fortunes  of 
this  should  be  briefly  characterized.  In  the  first  place,  the  problem  of 
Plato  was  to  define  the  limits  of  the  permanent  and  the  transient,  the 
eternal  and  the  ephemeral.  He  expressed  the  permanent  by  the  term 
"  idea  "  or  "  form,"  and  the  term  "  matter"  was  identified  with  the 
transient  or  "  phenomenal."  The  "  ideal  "  of  Platonic  parlance  thus 
became  identical  with  the  "  real  "  of  modern  parlance,  wherever  "  real " 
denoted  the  permanent,  or  the  universal.  But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Plato  made  his  "  ideal  "  the  permanent,  he  still  conceived  it  as  a  char- 
acteristic, a  property,  quality,  function,  activity,  or  modal  aspect  of  a 
supersensible  existence.  This  supersensible  existence  he  would  not 
call  "  matter"  because  he  chose  to  limit  this  term  to  the  "  phenome- 
nal" aspect  of  things,  the  changeable  or  transient  characteristic.     But 


62  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  philosophy  of  Lucretius  completely  reversed  the  conceptions  of  the 
Platonic  "  matter"  and  "  form,"  and  the  adoption  of  the  atomic  theory 
in  modern  thought  perpetuated  his  conceptions  of  the  case  while  those 
of  Plato  did  not  survive  outside  the  history  of  philosophy.  Lucretius 
made  "  matter  "  eternal  and  "  form  "  ephemeral.  In  his  conception 
"  forms,"  "  ideas,"  aspects,  modes  were  the  transient  resultants  of  com- 
position, or  the  compounding  of  atoms,  while  the  atoms  which  were 
material  were  permanent.  Hence  assuming  that  mental  phenomena 
were  the  activities,  characteristics,  modes,  etc.,  of  the  composition  of 
atoms  representing  the  organism  the  Lucretian  philosophy  easily  de- 
cided its  attitude  on  the  question  of  personal  survival  after  death. 
"  Ideas,"  being  activities  of  a  compound  subject  were  phenomenal  and 
transient.  Now  when  nominalism  established  itself  "ideas,"  being 
mental  modes,  became  purely  subjective  and  the  "  real"  became  con- 
vertible with  matter  which  was  the  objective  or  external  fact,  the 
transsubjective.  The  "ideal  and  the  real  "  which  were  identical  in 
Plato  became  exclusive  of  each  other  in  modern  thought,  and  as  the 
"real"  in  the  materialistic  theory  became  convertible  with  matter 
which  was  eternal  it  suggested  the  antithesis  to  describe,  in  modern 
parlance,  the  doctrine  of  Plato  as  turning  on  the  opposition  between 
the  "  real  and  the  phenomenal,"  or  the  constant  and  the  changeable. 
Hence  the  term  "  real "  is  often  taken  to  denote  the  permanent  as  op- 
posed to  the  transient  without  regard  to  the  question  of  the  subjective 
and  objective.  Consequently  it  is  only  by  adopting  the  conception  of 
"  real  "  as  just  defined  and  the  Platonic  conception  of  "  ideal "  that  we 
can  ascribe  the  Platonic  philosophy  as  identifying  the  "  real"  and  the 
"  ideal."  In  Lucretian  and  nominalistic  thought  this  identity  would 
be  denied,  but  only  because  the  meaning  and  implications  of  the  terms 
had  partly  or  wholly  changed.  In  nominalistic  psychology  where  the 
question  related  to  the  distinction  between  the  subjective  and  objective 
the  "  ideal  and  the  real"  would  express  the  opposition  between  inter- 
nal and  external,  the  mental  and  the  material,  as  things  different  at 
least  numerically  if  not  in  kind.  In  metaphysics,  especially  of  the 
materialistic  type  where  the  material  and  the  mental  represented  the 
antithesis  between  the  permanent,  and  the  transient,  and  the  "real" 
was  taken  for  the  material,  the  antithesis  which  represented  the  third 
import  of  the  term  "  real  "  is  expressed  in  the  terms  "  real  and  phe- 
nomenal." It  is  apparent,  therefore,  from  all  this  analysis  that  we 
have  in  the  word  ' '  reality  "  the  suggestion  of  a  variety  of  problems 
which  must  be  distinguished  from  each  other.  In  epistemology  this 
problem  regards  the  "  ideal  and  real  "  in  modern  parlance,  the  sub- 


ANALYSIS    OF   THE  PROBLEM   OF  KNOWLEDGE.  83 

jective  and  objective,  or  internal  and  external,  in  the  theory  of  percep- 
tion. That  is,  the  problem  is  to  determine  whether  and  how  the  mind 
can  "  know"  anything  transcending  its  own  states,  that  is,  something 
at  least  numerically  if  not  qualitatively  different  from  itself.  The  con- 
ceptions expressed  in  the  antitheses  between  the  actual  and  the  non- 
existent, the  "  real  and  the  unreal,"  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  the 
permanent  and  the  transient,  or  the  "  real  and  the  phenomenal,"  on  the 
other  hand,  have  no  interest  or  importance  in  the  theory  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  as  so  defined.  They  may  have  an  interest  in  noumenological 
problems.  But  whatever  this  may  be  and  whatever  further  discussion 
may  be  necessary  will  be  taken  up  later.  All  that  is  necessary  at  pres- 
ent is  to  recognize  the  equivocations  of  the  term  "  real "  and  to  define 
the  epistemological  problem  which  must  be  the  subject  of  immediate 
consideration.     This  is  the  limits  of  "  knowledge." 

But  the  "  limits  of  knowledge  "  is  also  an  ambiguous  expression. 
What  I  have  indicated  as  a  conception  of  certitude  associated  with  it 
also  becomes  connected  with  the  problem  of  its  compass.  Usually,  of 
course,  "  limits  "  refers  to  its  compass  or  range.  But  the  demand  for 
what  is  certainly  "  known"  as  opposed  to  scepticism  and  incertitude 
has  created  the  conception  that  "  knowledge  "  implies  certitude,  while 
the  controversy  about  its  compass,  its  inclusion  or  exclusion  of  external 
14  reality,"  has  created  the  conception  that  it  implies  a  definite  content 
to  which  it  is  confined.  Both  assumptions  become  confused  in  the 
general  problem  which  may  be  defined  as  consisting,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  a  question  regarding  the  limits  of  certitude,  and  on  the  other,  re- 
garding the  limits  of  compass  or  content.  Hence  in  the  epistemologi- 
cal problem  I  shall  have  to  discuss  both  these  aspects  of  it. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
PRIMARY  PROCESSES  AND  DATA  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 

I  have  avoided  the  use  of  the  term  "  elementary"  in  the  caption 
of  this  chapter  because  I  do  not  wish  to  imply  that  the  processes  of 
which  I  shall  treat  in  it  are  elements  of  a  complex  totality.  They  may' 
be  this,  and  are  undoubtedly  this  in  some  conceptions  of  the  term 
"  knowledge."  But  in  others  where  that  term  denotes  so  simple  and 
unanalyzable  a  process  as  "  intuition,"  elementary  would  not  correctly 
describe  it  except  we  mean  unanalyzable  instead  of  a  part  of  a  whole 
by  it.  But  whether  the  processes  and  data  which  I  am  to  consider  at 
present  are  elements  or  not,  they  are  certainly  primary,  that  is,  prior 
to  the  complex  conceptions  which  are  denominated  as  representative 
of  "  knowledge."  Whether  we  consider  them  elements  entering  into 
these  complex  products  they  are  facts  which  have  to  be  examined 
either  as  the  conditions  of  these  products  or  as  processes  and  data  in- 
volved. Hence  it  is  best  to  avoid  debatable  suggestions  and  to  call 
them  primary. 

In  calling  the  processes,  which  this  chapter  is  to  discuss,  "  pri- 
mary "  I  shall  remain  indifferent  to  the  question  whether  they  are 
elementary  or  complex.  The  habit  of  one  school,  when  speaking  of 
them  as  "  elementary  "  has  been  to  regard  them  as  "  simple  "  and  unan- 
alyzable, and  another  as  highly  complex.  I  am  willing  to  regard  them 
as  either  simple  or  complex,  according  to"  the  relation  in  which  they 
are  viewed.  For  the  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  which  studies  mainly 
the  validity  of  mental  processes  for  truth  we  regard  them  as  "  pri- 
mary "  because  we  start  with  them,  as  sufficiently  well  known  without 
that  peculiar  analysis  which  experimental  psychology  gives  them,  to 
deal  with  the  main  problems  of   reality. 

The  psychological  analysis  in  the  previous  chapter  represents  the 
fundamental  processes  of  "  knowledge"  as  being  intuition  and  cogni- 
tion, or  apprehension  and  judgment,  with  sensation,  mentation  and 
recognition  or  memory  as  subdivisions  or  species  of  the  first  of  these. 
I  have  alteady  remarked  that  I  did  not  mean  to  consider  them  as  tech- 
nically such  subdivisions,  but  as  facts  in  connection  with  which  appre- 
hension occurred  and  the  adjectival  mode  of  qualifying  the  species  of 
apprehension  was  the  better  indication  of  my  real  intention.  Conse- 
84 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  85 

quently  I  shall  separate  here  the  discussion  of  these  various  processes 
and  data  as  if  they  were  independent  problems.  Apprehension  is  a 
concomitant  function  of  all  the  others  while  they  have  to  be  considered 
for  the  purpose  of  making  clear  factors  in  the  general  problem  of 
*'  knowledge  "  that  are  not  always  analyzed  or  defined  with  sufficient 
care  and  reference  to  fundamental  issues.     I  begin  with  sensation. 

Sensation. 

Philosophers  and  psychologists  are  practically  agreed  as  to  the 
chronological  place  of  sensation  in  the  problem  of  "  knowledge"  and 
as  to  its  primary  importance.  The  dispute,  when  there  is  any,  turns 
about  its  content  and  significance.  If  we  had  any  evidence  that  some 
other  state  of  consciousness  initiated  "  knowledge  "  we  could  depreciate 
the  importance  of  sensation .  But  it  appears ,  according  to  general  agree- 
ment, that  sensation  must  be  prior  to  the  exercise  of  all  other  functions 
of  mind,  and  whether  this  be  strictly  true  or  not,  it  is  certainly  pos- 
sessed of  an  origin  that  suggests  this  and  must  be  discussed  accordingly. 

Assuming  that  it  is  the  prius  of  all  intuitive  and  cognitive  **  knowl- 
edge," there  are  two  questions  regarding  it  to  be  considered,  namely, 
(1)  its  definition,  and  (2)  its  interpretation,  or  its  relation  to  the  gen- 
eral content  of  "  knowledge." 

It  may  be  doubtful  whether  there  has  been  any  uniform  conception 
of  the  nature  of  sensation.  It  is  a  "  phenomenon  "  so  related  to  others 
in  temporal  juxtaposition  with  it,  that  confusion  could  easily  occur 
regarding  it.  This  sometimes  takes  place  when  the  question  arises 
whether  sensation  shall  be  treated  as  a  state  of  consciousness.  In  some 
systems  of  philosophy  "consciousness"  is  so  conceived  as  to  imply 
that  sensation  is  not  such  a  state  and  it  tends  to  become  identified  with 
the  supposed  neural  processes  antecedent  to  and  conditioning  con- 
sciousness. But  I  suspect  that  this  conception  of  it  grows  out  of  the 
desire  and  necessity  of  distinguishing  it  from  what  is  called  "  percep- 
tion," on  the  one  hand,  and  that  conception  of  "  consciousness,"  on 
the  other  hand,  which  more  or  less  identifies  consciousness  with  "  self- 
consciousness."  But  if  we  simply  conceive  or  define  "  consciousness  " 
to  be  that  concomitant  mental  act  which  is  itself,  or  is  aware  of  any  or 
all  facts  of  "  experience,"  or  as  Hamilton  calls  it,  the  "  complement 
of  the  cognitive  energies,"  we  shall  have  reason  to  regard  sensation  as 
one  of  the  facts  accompanied  by  "  consciousness,"  or  as  a  state  of  it. 
I  shall  so  regard  it,  inasmuch  as  I  conceive  "  consciousness  "  to  be 
the  most  general  and  essential  functional  activity  of  the  subject  and 
representing  that  awareness  of  facts,  not  merely  awareness  of  self, 


86  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which  distinguishes    it  from  what  is    regarded   as    unconscious   and 
physical. 

I  mean  therefore  to  conceive  sensation  as  a  state  of  conscious- 
ness. But  our  difficulties  begin  when  we  attempt  to  distinguish  this 
state  from  others  in  the  same  group.  When  we  define  an  object,  fact, 
or  phenomenon  we  are  expected  to  name  its  conferentia  and  differentia, 
its  essential  characteristics,  both  common  and  distinctive.  Thus  I  may 
define  a  "  stable"  as  a  building  qualified  for  the  housing  of  animals ; 
"water  "as  a  liquid  composed  of  hydrogen  and  oxygen  ;  a  "newspaper" 
as  a  medium  for  the  publication  of  daily  events  ;  a  "  horse  "  as  a  verte- 
brate animal,  etc.  These  may  not  be  technically  accurate,  but  they 
illustrate  sufficiently  the  principle  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  and 
which  is  recognized  universally  as  necessary  to  proper  definition, 
namely,  that  it  must  distinguish  the  thing  defined  from  the  others  by 
specifying  the  qualities  which  are  common  to  it  and  certain  others  and 
more  particularly  those  which  are  not  common,  but  differential.  This 
condition  is  exemplified  in  the  illustrations  given.  The  qualities  de- 
fining and  distinguishing  them  inhere  in  the  object  defined.  They  do 
not  express  relations  to  something  else  that  may  be  variable,  but  prop-- 
erties  of  the  thing  defined.  Now  it  must  be  said  of  sensation  that  it 
is  impossible  to  define  it  in  this  way.  We  can  name  its  general  char- 
acteristic, that  is,  consciousness,  but  we  cannot  name  its  differentia  as 
a  quality  of  the  "  phenomenon  "  defined,  and  hence  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  we  have  to  say  that  sensation  cannot  be  defined.  But  we  can 
distinguish  it  sufficiently  from  other  mental  states  by  indicating  one 
of  its  differential  relations,  and  then  leave  to  the  individual's  intro- 
spection the  recognition  of  what  is  meant.  With  this  explanation  I 
shall  define  sensation  as  that  state  of  consciousness  which  is  produced 
by  the  action  of  an  external  stimulus  upon  the  subject  of  it.  This 
definition,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  sufficiently  distinguishes  what  we 
are  talking  about  from  such  facts  as  "  perception,"  memory,  emotion, 
association,  self-consciousness,  etc.  We  have  a  fixed  relation  to  stimu- 
lus as  the  determinating  factor  of  its  distinction  from  other  mental  acts. 

But  however  acceptable  this  definition  may  be  it  is  not  self-explan- 
atory and  it  does  not  remove  all  difficulties  in  the  determination  of  its 
full  meaning.  We  require  to  examine  more  explicitly  the  peculiarities 
of  the  "  phenomenon  "  so  defined.  The  fact  is  that  sensation,  whether 
we  define  it  as  I  have  done  or  in  any  other  way,  is  an  exceedingly  ab- 
stract term.  It  is  a  double  abstraction  as  defined.  The  stimulus  is  not 
an  integral  part  of  the  "  phenomenon,"  but  an  independent  and  related 
fact,  so  that   sensation  thus  defined  is  simply  an  element  or  term  in  a 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  87 

series  of  facts.  Apparently  at  least,  it  cannot  be  conceived  apart  from 
this  environment.  But  this  aspect  of  its  abstract  nature  gives  very 
little  difficulty  when  compared  with  the  second,  which  represents  it  as 
a  general  concept,  not  a  concrete  member  of  a  series,  a  view  of  it 
which  might  be  regarded  as  very  clear  in  spite  of  its  abstract  charac- 
ter. But  it  is  a  general  concept  which  comprises  in  its  extension  such 
different  "  phenomena  "  that  when  we  seek  for  a  common  character- 
istic we  can  find  none  but  this  relation  to  an  external  stimulus,  and 
this  is  not  a  characteristic  of  the  " phenomenon"  at  all.  It  is 
simply  a  uniform  and  necessary  concomitant  and  condition  of  its  occur- 
rence. Hence  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  give  any  clear  idea  of  the 
term's  meaning  except  by  illustration,  and  this  is  to  appeal  to  more 
specific  and  concrete  facts  of  "  experience,"  and  so  to  name  the  phe- 
nomenal reactions  of  the  special  senses  in  each  case.  We  should  have 
to  name  sensations  of  color,  sound,  touch,  etc. 

When  it  comes  to  specifying  illustrations  of  what  is  meant  by  the 
term  sensation  the  origin  of  the  word  and  its  associati6ns  in  common 
"  experience  "  prompt  the  habit  of  indicating  tactual  "feelings"  as 
the  proper  representatives  of  it.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  in- 
adequacy of  such  "  phenomena"  to  express  all  that  we  mean  by  the 
term,  the  natural  tendency  is  to  illustrate  the  case  by  an  appeal  to 
touch  and  any  illustration  tends  to  leave  the  impression  of  convertibil- 
ity in  those  terms,  as  this  is  all  the  definition  that  common  discussion 
employs.  But  when  we  come  to  strict  psychological  and  epistemolog- 
ical  discussion  it  is  apparent  that  such  a  device  will  not  avail  much. 
We  have  to  include  other  sensory  "  experiences"  in  our  conception  of 
the  term.  It  applies,  according  to  the  definition  adopted  above,  to 
visual  and  auditory  phenomena  as  well  as  to  tactual,  sapient,  and  olfac- 
tory. Now  it  is  characteristic  of  our  tactual  sensations  that  they  are 
definitely  localized  on  the  periphery  of  the  organism  while  those  of 
vision  are  not  so  localized,  and  perhaps  those  of  hearing  are  not  sa 
localized.  Vision,  as  Hamilton  remarked,  is  usually  conceived  as  a 
percipient  sense  rather  than  as  a  sensational  organ  or  sense.  We  do- 
not  directly  distinguish  between  the  sensation  and  the  thing  "  per- 
ceived." In  fact  we  are  apparently  not  aware  immediately  of  the 
sensation  as  defined,  but  only  of  the  so-called  object  of  "  perception." 
In  touch,  whether  we  are  any  differently  qualified  to  pronounce  upon 
the  situation  or  not,  we  generally  at  least,  try  to  distinguish  between 
the  sensation  and  the  object  or  stimulus  causing  it.  It  may  be  with 
the  help  of  vision  and  visual  "  experiences"  in  the  past  that  we  are 
able  to  so  represent  the  matter  to  the  mind,  but  whatever  the  origin 


SS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  the  habit  it  is  certainly  one  that  is  very  common,  namely,  to  localize 
the  tactual  sensation  on  the  organism  and  the  cause  or  stimulus  as 
external  to  this,  so  that  from  the  standpoint  of  touch  we  have  a  con- 
ception of  the  distinction  between  sensation  and  its  cause  which  we 
apparently  do  not  have  in  vision.  In  fact  we  might  say  of  vision  that 
we  never  are  aware  of  the  sensation  at  all,  but  only  of  the  object  or 
stimulus,  at  least  as  common  sense  usually  conceives  the  case.  The 
tendency  to  test  one  of  the  senses  by  the  other,  the  reliance  we  have 
on  vision  for  all  anticipations  of  tactual  "  experience,"  and  the 
assumed  "  objectivity"  of  causes  to  effects,  lead  to  such  an  association 
of  touch  and  vision  that  in  our  commonly  accepted  conception  of  the 
matter  the  tactual  object  is  a  visual  percept  and  the  sensation  an  affec- 
tion of  the  sensorium  while  in  vision  the  object  is  a  visual  percept  and 
no  "  feeling"  of  a  localized  sort  appears  in  consciousness,  at  least  in 
any  way  analogous  to  tactual  sensation  or  suggesting  that  idea  of  sen- 
sation. But  when  we  are  reduced  to  each  individual  sense  for  the 
determination  of  the  object  we  find  that,  in  touch,  we  either  cannot 
distinguish  between  the  sensation,  affection  of  the  sensorium,  and  the 
object,  or  we  have  to  deny  the  resemblance  between  sensation  and  object, 
making  the  latter  "  unknowable  "  in  terms  of  the  former.  In  hearing 
there  is  no  definite  localization  of  the  sensation  and  only  an  associative 
or  inferential  conception  of  the  object,  interpreting  "  conception  "  in  the 
representative  sense  of  resemblance  in  kind.  In  vision  we  have  seen 
that  there  is  no  distinction  between  sensation  and  object,  but  only  be- 
cause there  is  no  "  sensation"  in  the  sense  which  that  term  bears  in 
touch.  The  other  senses  exhibit  in  various  degrees  the  same  phe- 
nomenon. The  consequence  is  that  when  we  come  to  examine  the 
common  quality  which  shall  define  the  term  "sensation"  in  all  sen- 
sory ' '  experience  "  we  find  that  the  only  conf erential  or  common  fact 
is  a  relation  to  stimulus,  and  this  is  not  a  quality  of  the  sensation  at 
all.  This  relation  indicates  the  object  having  a  constant  reference  to 
the  sensation  and  this  constant  reference  may  be  used  as  evidence  of  the 
fact  about  which  we  wish  to  reflect  when  discussing  sensory  "  experi- 
ence." That  is  to  say,  nothing  will  make  clear  or  intelligible  what  we 
mean  by  the  sensation  but  an  illustration  or  a  personal  "  experience," 
since  we  cannot  mention  the  associated  synthetic  characteristic  of  it 
which  will  identify  it,  but  only  the  associated  synthetic  cause  which  is 
no  part  of  its  constitution.  The  conception  of  sensation  is  thus  the  most 
abstract  possible,  the  so-called  common  quality  being  nothing  but  a 
common  relation  to  stimulus.  But  two  facts  still  more  highly  refine 
this  abstraction.     Firstly,  the  stimuli  do  not  appear  to  be,  and  certainly 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  09 

are  not  conceived  to  be,  the  same  in  kind.  Secondly,  when  the  "  phe- 
nomena "  of  sensational  "experience"  are  carefully  examined  we 
analyze  or  reduce  the  localization  into  a  reference  to  the  sensorium 
which  we  do  not  localize  at  all,  but  leave  it  indeterminate  between  the 
periphery  and  the  center  of  the  neural  system.  The  consequence  is 
that,  when  we  have  eliminated  the  adjuncts  of  sensation  which  are  no 
constitutional  qualities  of  it  we  have  left  nothing  in  conception  but  a 
"  subjective  "  phenomenon.  The  assumed  "  representative  "  character 
of  the  sensation  is  lost,  and  if  once  the  principle  of  causality  is  dis- 
puted the  necessity  of  supposing  an  external  object  is  eradicated. 

This  situation  is  the  paradise  of  scepticism.  It  has  only  to  take 
the  definition  of  sensation  advanced  by  "  common  sense  "  to  show  that 
the  external  object  assumed  by  that  point  of  view  is  not  contained  in 
the  thing  defined,  and  when  it  appeals  to  the  phenomena  of  illusion  in 
sense  perception  it  easily  discredits  the  convictions  or  "  knowledge  " 
associated  with  and  assumed  to  transcend  sensation.  What  we  seemed 
so  certain  of  before  this  critical  investigation  dissolves  into  the  nature 
of  an  hypothesis  of  inference,  by  supposition,  and  an  hypothesis  or  in- 
ference is  always  assumed  to  have  some  measure  of  uncertainty  about 
it,  a  likelihood  of  being  false.  Whether  this  be  the  correct  conception 
of  the  case  I  do  not  at  present  need  to  inquire,  as  I  am  concerned  only 
with  the  fact  that  this  interpretation  of  the  situation  has  existed  as  a 
fact,  and  it  was  made  as  the  logical  consequence,  presumptively,  of 
the  definition  of  the  "  natural  realist."  It  is  this  peculiarly  confusing 
condition  of  things  which  gives  rise  to  the  epistemological  problem 
regarding  the  existence  of  external  reality.  At  first  and  before  any 
special  analysis  of  the  primary  data  of  "  knowledge"  had  been  made 
the  existence  of  an  external  "reality"  was  taken  as  an  immediate 
datum  of  the  same  state  of  consciousness  as  the  sensation,  but  the 
gradual  generalization  of  the  meaning  of  "  sensation"  and  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  object  from  its  true  content  left  the  inquirer  without  the 
right  to  deduce  his  object  from  the  defined  nature  of  his  sensation,  and 
scepticism  won  the  victory. 

But  the  situation  created  a  tendency  and  scepticism  made  an  admis- 
sion which  requires  some  notice.  The  analysis  at  least  seems  to  show 
the  elimination  of  the  object  from  direct  "  knowledge."  The  sceptic 
admitted  the  "knowledge"  of  sensations,  and  by  this  "knowledge" 
he  meant  the  certainty  of  this  fact  at  least.  But  to  both  classes  of 
thinkers,  the  sceptic  and  the  "  natural  realist,"  there  was  necessarily 
a  peculiar  incident  about  this  "  knowledge."  There  was  some  sort 
of  identity  between  the  act  and  its  object,  the  mental   state  and  the 


90  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

thing  "  known."  Before  sceptical  analysis  had  been  applied  there 
was  a  difference  assumed  between  them.  The  object  or  cause  of  the 
sensation  presumptively  existed  "  outside  "  the  sensation,  that  is,  out- 
side the  organism  or  sensorium.  Externality  to  the  sensation,  "  aus- 
einander,"  was  the  conception  used  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  the  fact 
of  "  experience."  But  this  antithesis  could  no  longer  be  assumed 
when  the  object  was  eliminated  from  the  datum  immediately  "  known" 
and  in  its  stead  there  came  the  assumption  that  the  "knowing"  and 
the  "  known"  were  the  same  thing,  at  least  in  respect  of  time,  and 
also  of  space  if  that  could  enter  into  the  conception  of  the  matter,  and 
it  does  enter  into  it  when  the  conscious  localization  of  the  sensation  in 
the  periphery  is  admitted  into  the  account. 

It  is  out  of  this  situation  that  the  various  theories  of  perception 
have  originated.  The  ineradicable  believer  in  a  "  real"  world  other 
than  sensations  and  external  to  the  subject  resorts  to  "perception," 
"  apprehension,"  "  intuition,"  "  instinct, "or  other  functions  to  give  what 
he  is  forced  to  admit  is  not  given  in  sensation.  Now  it  is  not  my  pur- 
pose at  this  stage  of  the  discussion  to  examine  the  nature  or  the  validity 
of  such  suppositions  but  only  to  indicate  that  they  are  inventions  to 
supplement  the  supposed  defects  or  imperfect  capacities  of  sensation, 
and  that  the  device  gives  rise  to  the  general  supposition  of  "  higher" 
functions  for  the  assertion  of  "knowledge"  than  sense  deliverances. 
The  examination  of  them  will  be  made  further  on  in  this  work.  At 
present  I  am  engaged  in  ascertaining  what  conception  must  be  taken 
of  sensation  as  a  preliminary  process  or  datum  of  "  knowledge,"  and 
having  seen  that  the  anti-sceptic  tends  to  supplement  the  nature  of 
sensation  by  other  functions  for  the  purpose,  I  merely  wish  to  remark 
that  he  tends  to  change  the  very  conception  of  ' '  knowledge  "  to  the 
same  extent  by  including  in  it,  not  only  the  object  which  has  to  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  content  of  sensation,  whether  he  regards  it  as  repre- 
sentative or  non-representative,  but  also  a  non-sensory  activity.  But 
the  sceptic  still  has  a  consideration  of  some  importance  in  the  solution 
of  the  problem.  Though  he  admits  or  seems  to  admit  the  definition 
of  the  realist,  he  does  so  either  for  ad  hominem  purposes  or  for  the 
purpose  of  insisting  that  the  discovery  of  such  an  object  or  cause  of 
sensation  is  a  later  adjunct  of  consciousness  and  not  an  original  datum 
of  that  which  is  so  defined.  This  is  to  say,  that  the  definition  repre- 
sents the  conception  of  the  adult  mind  and  lays  too  much  emphasis 
upon  the  relation  to  stimulus  as  the  criterion  of  what  the  sensation  is 
or  when  it  occurs  distinct  from  other  mental  states.  Now  just  in  pro- 
portion as  the  sceptic  discredits  these  adjunctive  functions  as  deliverers 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  91 

of  "  knowledge"  or  certainty  as  to  the  fact  and  nature  of  its  object, 
just  in  the  same  proportion  does  he  limit  "knowledge"  to  sensation 
and  indicates  that  the  problem  is  to  legitimate  the  assertion  of  external 
objects  and  not  to  assume  that  legitimacy  and  invent  non-sensory  proc- 
esses or  terms  to  explain  the  "  knowledge  "  of  them.  He  tends  or 
appears  to  confine  certain  and  valid  "  knowledge  "  to  sensation  and 
mentation,  making  the  former  quite  as  subjective  as  the  latter. 
"  Knowing"  and  "being,"  or  "  knowing"  and  having  mental  states 
appear  to  be  the  same  in  this  conception  of  the  terms  and  to  be  subject 
to  the  limitations  of  what  is  meant  by  the  term  subjective.  That  is, 
the  sceptic  applies  the  predicate  of  incertitude  and  of  liability  to  illu- 
sion to  the  objective,  or  even  questions  its  validity  altogether. 

I  shall  not  at  present  undertake  the  criticism  of  this  position,  as  I 
am  rather  interested  in  stating  what  the  problem  is.  But  there  are  a 
few  things  in  the  way  of  qualification  that  are  necessary  to  remark  in 
order  to  understand  the  limitations  of  the  sceptic's  doctrine  and  its 
relation  to  the  theory  which  it  is  supposed  to  dispute.  In  the  first 
place,  the  sceptic  must  accept  some  other  function  than  sensation  as  a 
condition  of  interpreting  even  in  an  ad  hominem  way  the  definition  of 
the  "  natural  realist."  He  must  trust  the  certitude  of  the  process  by 
which  he  concludes  from  the  accepted  definition  of  sensation  that  its 
limitations  are  what  he  assumes.  If  not,  he  cannot  impeach  the 
"  knowledge  "  of  external  objects.  His  very  scepticism  is  based  for 
its  value  and  cogency  upon  the  trustworthiness  of  intellectual  functions 
other  than  sensation  when  he  interprets  the  limitations  of  sensation 
according  to  the  definition,  to  say  nothing  of  his  theory  to  account  for 
ideas  by  association  whose  existence  he  admits  but  whose  validity  he 
wishes  to  impair.  He  can  effect  his  object  only  by  accepting  the 
validity  of  reasoning  and  the  logical  processes  generally.  This  is 
accepting  a  conception  of  "  knowledge"  as  certitude  which  is  distinct 
from  sensation.  In  the  second  place,  the  sceptic  has  to  assume  that 
the  act  of  "  knowing"  the  sensation  itself  is  not  the  same  as  the  sen- 
sation. It  may  be  numerically  identical  {numero  eadem),  that  is,  it 
occurs  in  connection  with  it  and  is  so  associated  with  it  as  to  be  insep- 
arable from  it  in  time,  but  it  is  not  qualitatively  identical  {arte  eadem) 
with  it,  but  functionally  different  in  kind.  The  functional  discrim- 
ination between  sensation  and  other  mental  states  that  are  not  sensation 
is  an  act  which  cannot  be  identified  with  the  sensation,  so  that  even  if 
we  are  supposed  to  have  the  limits  of  "  knowledge  "  determined  by 
the  limits  of  sensation  excluding  the  presentation  of  external  objects, 
the  act  of  ' '  knowing  "  is  different  in  kind  from  the  sensory  reaction 


92  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

against  stimulus  and  is  not  to  be  confused  with  it,  though  it  is  a  simul- 
taneous act.  Hence  "knowing"  and  "being"  are  not  the  same 
functional  facts  though  they  coincide  temporally,  and  the  sceptic  has 
to  accept  a  process  of  consciousness  for  "  knowledge  "  which  he  cannot 
limit  to  sensation  even  when  he  excludes  external  objects  from  the 
content  of  sensory  "  experience"  and  the  assumed  certitude  belonging 
to  this  "  experience."  This  consciousness  is  an  apprehensive  act 
which  is  far  more  fundamental  to  "  knowledge  "  than  the  sensation, 
even  though  it  depends  for  its  occurrence  upon  the  same  conditions 
which  give  rise  to  sensation.  In  both  the  ratiocinative  and  apprehensive 
processes  which  the  sceptic  thus  admits  he  coincides  with  the  "  natural 
realist  "  in  the  assumption  of  functions  that  are  not  convertible  with  the 
sensory  in  nature  when  he  conceives  "  knowledge"  both  as  certitude 
and  as  a  function. 

This  position  assumes  that  sensation  is  a  term  of  deeper  abstract 
import  than  appears  on  the  surface.  It  is  not  only  abstract  as  being 
the  generic  term  for  phenomena  that  have  no  common  characteristic, 
but  only  a  common  relation  to  assumed  stimuli  of  an  external  kind  ;  but 
it  is  also  abstract  in  the  further  sense  that  it  does  not  express  the  whole 
process  which  takes  place  at  the  moment,  but  only  a  part  of  it,  the 
complement  being  the  apprehensive  act  which  represents  the  really 
*'  knowing"  part  of  the  whole. 

Further  discussion  of  this  question  will  be  taken  up  when  the  theory 
of  external  "  reality  "  is  considered.  All  that  I  am  at  present  concerned 
to  remark  is  the  fact  that  the  sceptic  virtually  admits  that  there  are 
other  mental  states  implicated  in  the  act  of  "  knowledge."  The 
validity  of  such  processes  will  come  under  consideration  again.  The 
point  at  present  is  to  determine  the  limits  of  the  meaning  of  sensation 
as  a  term  denoting  a  datum  in  the  theory  of  "  knowledge."  This  limit 
is  expressed  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  only  a  subjective  event,  not 
including  a  representative  idea  of  the  "  reality"  supposed  to  occasion 
it,  but  also  a  "  feeling  "  or  state  that  is  not  conceived  as  a  discriminating 
consciousness  but  as  a  reaction  of  some  kind,  however  closely  related 
it  may  be  in  fact  and  conception  to  the  apprehensive  act  which  is  aware 
of  it  or  temporally  identified  with  it.  That  conclusion  regarding  it 
enables  us  to  recognize  that  we  have  not  determined  all  problems  by 
merely  concentrating  attention  upon  an  event  assumed  to  be  simple  and 
a  chronological  prius  of  other  acts,  but  which  is  simple  only  by 
abstraction  and  a  prius  only  of  certain  complex  processes  still  to  be 
considered.  The  trouble  has  been  that  various  thinkers  of  both  the 
sceptical  and  dogmatic  schools  have  treated  the  question  as  if  it  were  a 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  93 

problem  of  "origin,"  of  chronological  genesis,  and  implied  thereby 
that  the  chronological  prius  was  the  best  known  and  that  the  latter 
was  dubious  or  less  certain.  That  is  to  say  they  assumed  or  admitted 
that  the  acts  superimposed  temporally  upon  sensation,  whether  as 
inferences  or  "  perceptions,"  were  less  certain  and  more  exposed  to 
invalidity  than  the  first  "  experience."  The  problem  of  certitude  and 
validity  was  made  convertible  with  historical  genesis,  an  assumption 
which  present  psychology  will  not  admit  for  a  moment. 

General  psychophysical  considerations  in  regard  to  the  simplicity 
or  complexity  of  "sensation"  I  do  not  consider  as  important.  I  am 
here  concerned  with  the  meaning  and  content  of  the  phenomenon  for 
the  problem  of  "  knowledge"  as  related  to  objects  other  than  the  sen- 
sation and  not  with  the  question  of  its  sensory  nature,  simplicity  or 
complexity,  a  matter  affecting  only  its  elements  and  variations  of  content 
as  a  "phenomenon,"  and  not  its  general  relation  to  cognition,  even 
though  these  facts  have  a  bearing  upon  what  we  know  in  metaphys- 
ical problems.  The  primary  and  fundamental  problem  is  to  determine 
the  meaning  and  limits  of  all  sensations,  simple  or  complex,  their 
relation  to  the  general  problem  of  "  knowledge "  concerned  with 
"  reality."  This  meaning  and  limit  I  conceive  to  be  its  nature  as  a 
primary  event  in  the  analysis  of  that  whole  which  is  usually  com- 
prehended in  the  term  "  knowledge"  as  a  larger  totality  than  mere 
sensation. 

We  may  concede  to  the  sceptic  the  right  to  demand  that  it  is  the 
validity  of  "  perception"  that  is  in  debate  when  considering  the  ques- 
tion of  an  external  "  reality  "  and  that  this  cannot  be  assumed  to  be 
representatively  given  in  the  sensatiCrt,  whatever  we  may  say  or  think 
about  its  certitude  as  indirectly  ascertained  or  believed.  Various  facts 
point  to  the  rationality  of  the  supposition  that  the  conception  of  external 
"  reality  "  is  an  adjunct  to  the  sensation  which  cannot  be  clearly  defined 
without  mentioning  its  relation  to  such  a  fact,  and,  if  the  sceptic  be  ad- 
mitted right  in  the  matter,  is  an  adventitious  adjunct  with  less  certainty 
attached  to  our  convictions  regarding  it  than  to  our  mental  states 
including  sensation. 

Mentation. 

I  shall  employ  the  term  "  mentation  "  to  denote  those  mental  states 
which  are  not  sensations,  but  which  may  be  objects  of  apprehension 
or  self-consciousness  nevertheless.  I  refer  to  such  acts  as  are  named 
"  perception,"  imagination,  reasoning,  association,  etc.,  conceived 
merely  as  events  happening,  and  not  as  functionally  involved  in  inter- 
pretation.     The  phenomena  that  I  have  in  mind  can  all  be  compre- 


94  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

hended  in  the  one  term  self-consciousness  and  are  simply  what  we  are 
aware  of  as  going  on  when  we  turn  consciousness  upon  itself.  Locke 
used  the  term  reflection  for  these  "  simple  ideas."  They  do  not 
require  any  elaborate  definition  and  analysis  or  criticism,  as  in  the  case 
of  sensation,  because  there  is  no  such  issue  as  that  involved  in  the 
nature  and  meaning  of  sensation.  They  are  never  defined  with  refer- 
ence to  an  object  external  to  them.  All  parties  agree  that  they  are 
purely  subjective  acts  and  may  not  indicate  any  relation  to  an  external 
cause  at  all.  They  are  admittedly  "known"  immediately  or  intui- 
tively and  are  in  no  way  amenable  to  the  functions  of  inference  or 
functions  like  it  in  the  determination  of  the  facts.  They  are  univers- 
ally accorded  the  nature  of  "  knowledge,"  at  least  in  respect  of  certi- 
tude. They  do  not  exhibit  that  variety  of  form  which  characterizes 
the  various  sensations.  The  concrete  instances  of  them  may  be  far 
more  numerous,  but  I  refer  to  their  form.  There  are  at  least  six  dis- 
tinct senses,  including  the  thermal  of  recent  discovery,  and  the  unequal 
relation  of  these  senses  to  "reality"  and  the  influence  of  association 
on  the  conceptions  which  we  form  of  their  individual  and  collective 
functions  in  the  complex  of  "  knowledge,"  makes  sensation  a  compli- 
cated "phenomenon"  in  its  meaning  and  relations.  But  the  internal 
states,  in  spite  of  their  innumerable  concrete  instances,  are  all  of  one 
kind,  simple  acts  of  introspection  into  the  states  of  the  subject  whether 
they  be  sensations  or  other  facts  of  consciousness.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion of  their  non-complication  with  problems  of  the  external  world,  at 
least  directly.  There  are  incidents  that  separate  them  indubitably  from 
that  kind  of  connection  with  external  "  reality  "  which  would  raise  the 
query  regarding  it  as  in  sensation.  They  are  such  as  the  influence  of 
attention  and  association  upon  the  events  that  are  so  introspected.  The 
stream  of  purely  mental  states  in  imagination,  in  subjective  reflection, 
in  dreams,  in  recalling  the  past  is  so  affected  by  the  subject's  own 
power  over  its  course,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  that  we  do  not  sus- 
pect, and  cannot  be  made  to  believe,  that  it  is  produced  in  precisely 
the  same  way  that  sensations  are  produced.  There  is  a  constancy  of 
causal  nexus  between  given  sensations  and  their  stimulus,  along  with 
the  independence  of  sensation  from  the  arbitrary  control  of  the  sub- 
ject's will,  at  least  directly,  and  also  a  quale  in  the  consciousness  itself, 
that  quite  distinguish  the  internal  "experience"  very  clearly  from 
the  externally  produced  "  phenomenon,"  while  the  unity  of  the  internal 
states  is  so  conspicuous  that  there  seems  to  be  but  one  definite  type  of 
event  which  is  easily  defined  as  the  consciousness  of  the  subject's  own 
states  both  internally  and  externally  occasioned  and  also   as   distinct 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  95 

from  each  other  in  this  respect.  In  so  far  as  they  are  intuited  as 
events  to  be  referred  to  something  as  their  ground  or  cause  they  are 
precisely  like  sensations.  They  are  "  phenomena,"  even  if  they  are 
also  acts  of  "knowing  "to  be  described  as  cognitive  judgments  and 
reasoning.  In  so  far  as  they  are  conceived  as  mere  facts  of  observa- 
tion they  are  data  for  "  knowledge"  of  a  more  complex  kind  and  are 
not  that  "  knowledge  "  itself.  This  is  the  conception  which  I  wish  at 
present  to  take  of  them.  What  their  meaning  is,  what  the  interpreta- 
tion and  explanation  may  be  it  is  not  necessary  even  to  suggest  at  this 
stage  of  our  inquiries,  but  only  the  fact  that  they  have  to  be  distin- 
guished from  sensations  in  very  important  characteristics  which  sug- 
gest that  we  must  either  admit  a  very  great  elasticity  in  the  term 
"  knowledge,"  as  compared  with  the  tendency  of  the  sensationalist  to 
limit  it,  or  find  some  other  term  with  equal  implication  as  to  certitude 
and  compass  and  involving  processes  quite  as  valid  transparently  as 
sensation. 

It  is  this  last  circumstance  which  it  is  most  important  to  notice. 
The  admission  of  self-knowledge,  of  introspective  states  other  than 
sensation  and  other  than  of  sensation  is  the  admission  of  functions  in- 
volving "  knowledge."  The  sensationalist,  from  the  important  place 
occupied  by  sensation  in  the  early  stages  of  mental  development,  tends 
to  identify  "knowledge"  with  sensation,  if  he  is  a  sceptic,  because 
he  does  not  stop  to  reflect  what  it  is  even  in  sensation  that  can  properly 
be  called  "  knowledge,"  namely,  the  consciousness  part  of  it  as  an 
active  function  of  apprehension  rather  than  that  aspect  of  it  considered 
as  a  reflex  of  stimulus.  It  is  the  sensation  as  a  content,  as  an  object, 
an  ultimate  fact  of  "  experience,"  that  he  has  in  mind,  and  so  is  think- 
ing of  the  datum  rather  than  the  process,  of  the  things  "known" 
rather  than  the  act  "  knowing."  But  in  dealing  with  the  purely  sub- 
jective states  of  reflection  not  necessarily  instigated  by  external  stimuli, 
he  has  only  the  function  of  consciousness  to  think  of  and  in  this  situa- 
tion it  is  inevitable  that  "knowledge"  should  partake  of  a  meaning 
quite  different  from  sensation  as  an  effect.  It  suggests  the  existence 
of  other,  perhaps  higher,  functions  than  those  implicated  in  sensation 
alone  and  exclusive  of  the  intuitive  act  of  apprehending  a  fact  as  a  fact 
of  consciousness.  The  admission  of  such  functions  opens  the  door 
wide  to  the  extension  of  the  conception  of  "  knowledge,"  both  as  re- 
gards its  assurance  and  its  content,  beyond  the  limits  assigned  to  it  by 
the  exclusion  of  an  external  world  from  the  content  of  sensation.  We 
may  adopt  the  language  indicating  the  limitation  of  "  knowledge  "  to 
"  phenomena,"  but  when  we  have  admitted  other  mental  functions  than 


c>t>  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sensation  in  the  action  of  consciousness,  unless  we  can  give  the  same 
kind  of  evidence  for  its  subjective  limitations  that  we  have  in  the  case 
of  sensation,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  belief  that  they  have  the 
capacity  to  supply  what  sensation  does  not  supply,  and  this  has 
actually  been  the  course  taken  by  philosophers.  A  conviction  so 
ineradicable  as  the  existence  of  an  external  "  reality"  has  to  be  ex- 
plained, whether  it  be  illusory  or  not,  and  if  it  happen  to  be  firm  and 
tenacious  as  the  confidence  in  our  own  mental  states,  its  validity  is 
likely  to  be  accepted  as  a  foregone  conclusion  and  consciousness  an- 
alyzed in  a  way  to  present  the  process  qualified  to  justify  the  convic- 
tion, when  sensation  is  shown  or  supposed  to  be  disqualified  for  it. 
The  existence  of  other  functions  of  "  knowledge  "  than  sensation  is  at 
least  presumptive  evidence  that  such  capacities  exist.  There  is  no 
reason  for  limiting  the  capacity  of  consciousness  to  "  know  "  except 
the  assumptions  which  have  arisen  from  the  illusions  associated  with 
the  synthesis  of  sensory  data,  but  as  similar  perplexities  do  not  betray 
themselves  in  normal  internal  states  there  is  nothing  against  supposing 
that  it  is  the  very  nature  of  consciousness  as  intuitive,  apprehensive,  or 
cognitive  to  "know"  more  than  itself,  that  is,  to  have  a  meaning 
extending  to  the  assertion  of  a"  reality"  beyond  the  area  of  its  own 
"  phenomenal"  nature.  Whether  this  supposition  is  justifiable  is  not 
here  the  question,  but  only  the  strength  of  mental  temptation  and  the 
pardonable  mental  interest  in  a  belief  so  cohesive  and  firm  as  that  in 
the  existence  of  external  "  reality."  If  there  were  no  mental  states  but 
the  sensory  whose  limitations  seem  to  be  so  thoroughly  demonstrated, 
scepticism  would  have  had  everything  its  own  way,  but  a  difficulty 
like  the  denial  of  an  external  world  is  only  the  motive  for  the  analysis 
of  consciousness  in  a  way  to  admit  the  validity  of  its  judgments  both  as 
regards  the  existence  of  illusion  and  the  conviction  that  sensation  can 
be  transcended  in  some  way.  Any  other  alternative  means  for  most 
minds  the  distrust  of  all  convictions  whatsoever.  Hence  if  the  oppor- 
tunity offers  in  the  admitted  existence  of  active  powers  of  conscious- 
ness to  suppose  that  it  is  these  which  are  instrumental  in  the  "  per- 
ception "  of  external  "  reality"  and  not  the  sensation  scepticism  can 
vindicate  its  own  distrust  only  by  proving  the  same  limitations  in  these 
powers  that  it  assumes  in  sensation.  It  may  be  able  to  do  this.  I  am 
not  at  present  interested  in  disputing  the  fact,  but  only  in  calling 
attention  to  a  circumstance  which  suggests  that  "  knowledge  "  may  be 
either  more  originally  complex  than  is  usually  assumed  or  its  later 
complexity  is  not  an  evolution  out  of  the  simple  but  a  synthesis  of 
functions  whose  individual  elements  do  not  develop  in  parallel  lines. 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  97 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  the  admission  of  mental  states 
other  than  sensation  into  the  domain  of  "  knowledge"  so  widens  the 
import  of  that  term  that  no  apriori  presumptions  against  trans-sub- 
jective processes  can  be  proved  by  the  limitations  of  sense. 

Memory. 

Memory  is  a  somewhat  uncertain  term.  It  does  duty  for  the  process 
of  recognizing  a  past  event  and  also  for  all  those  real  or  supposed  facts 
which  succeed  the  original  impression  and  precede  its  recognition, 
and  these  facts  are  usually  called  Retention  and  Reproduction  or  As- 
sociation. As  both  of  these  facts,  retention  and  reproduction,  repre- 
sent subconscious  conditions  they  have  no  place  in  the  primary  data 
of  "  knowledge."  What  I  wish  to  deal  with  here  is  memory  as  a 
mental  state  involving  the  consciousness  of  the  past,  a  process  or  phe- 
nomenon quite  different  in  some  respects  from  sensation  and  other 
forms  of  mentation.  This  difference  may  be  nothing  more  than  the 
element  of  past  time  while  in  the  other  instances  it  is  present  time 
only,  but  it  is  an  important  difference  even  if  it  is  nothing  more  than 
the  admission  of  the  element  of  past  instead  of  present  time.  But 
what  I  wish  to  note  in  the  conception  of  memory  is  its  immediacy,  its 
directness  and  freedom  from  ratiocinative  character.  Its  simplicity  as 
an  act  maybe  subject  to  doubt,  if  we  take  the  mnemonic  consciousness 
in  its  adult  form,  where  the  act  is  often  very  closely  associated  with 
the  exercise  of  other  functions,  which  are  to  be  considered  later.  But 
it  is  not  the  complex  state  of  comparison  with  the  past  that  I  am  now 
considering,  but  the  simple  act  of  recognizing  the  past,  even  though  it 
be  an  abstraction  to  conceive  it  so.  This  recognition  is  an  irreducible 
act  and  in  that  respect  is  an  ultimate  fact  of  consciousness  and  it  is  this 
characteristic  which  I  am  defining  and  which  I  wish  to  treat  as  a  funda- 
mental element  in  the  more  complex  functions  of  "  knowledge." 

In  the  looser  application  of  the  term,  Memory  is  complex,  since  it 
is  taken  to  comprehend  all  the  processes  and  conditions  connected  with 
it.  They  are  Retention,  Redintegration,  Representation  or  Imagina- 
tion and  Recognition,  but  the  only  element  of  any  importance  to  the ' 
epistemological  problem  is  the  recognitive  function  which  supplies, 
that  factor  in  "  knowledge  "  involving  the  past  as  a  datum.  We  have 
in  this  recognition,  or  consciousness  that  an  element  in  the  present 
state  is  a  reproduction  of  the  past,  a  "  phenomenon"  that  is  as  ultimate 
as  sensation  and  any  other  elementary  fact  of  mentation.  It  is  not  re- 
solvable into  a  complex  of  simpler  and  non-recognitive  acts.  It  is  the 
primary  condition  of  all  »  knowledge"  which  affects  to  determine  the 

7 


9S  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

unity  of  phenomena  in  time.  I  am  not  concerned  with  the  problem 
of  the  validity  of  recognition,  as  that  must  be  a  subject  of  considera- 
tion in  dealing  with  the  general  question  respecting  the  criterion  of 
truth.  I  have  in  mind  here  only  the  mnemonic  function  as  datum 
in  the  exercise  of  other  activities  in  the  production  of  complex 
*'  knowledge." 

Apprehension. 

As  I  have  hesitated  regarding  the  consideration  of  sensation,  men- 
tation and  recognition  under  the  head  of  Apprehension,  owing  to  the 
possible  misunderstanding  of  their  nature  and  relation  to  the  questions 
involved  I  must  examine  the  subject  of  Apprehension  very  fully  and 
perhaps  in  a  way  that  will  suggest  an  actual  revision  of  what  has  been 
said  about  the  previous  processes  or  functions.  This  warning  to  the 
reader  is  necessary  because  of  two  facts.  Firstly,  the  prevailing  habit 
of  psychologists  and  philosophers  outside  the  movement  started  by 
Kant,  has  been  to  define  and  discuss  sensation  and  mentation  or  "  in- 
ternal sense  "  as  chronologically  prior  to  and  conditional  of  apprehen- 
sion. That  is  to  say,  they  have  at  least  permitted  the  impression  to 
arise  that  apprehension  was  a  distinct  function  of  mind  which  might 
be  later  in  its  manifestation,  if  not  its  origin,  than  sensation  as  well  as 
representing  a  function  capable  of  having  an  object  of  "  perception" 
which  the  others  did  not  have.  Secondly,  the  manner  of  treatment 
which  I  have  given  them  rather  suggests  the  same  conception,  as  I 
purposely  put  myself  in  the  attitude  of  this  school  to  study  the  phe- 
nomena so  considered  in  as  much  isolation  as  was  possible,  just  as  if 
these  functions  could  be  conceived  as  distinct  in  time  and  meaning. 
In  saying  this,  however,  I  do  not  intend  to  imply  that  I  adopt  the  other 
position  at  present,  because  I  am  not  going  to  define  the  issues  in  any 
way  to  beg  questions  between  the  two  schools.  I  wish  only  to  reserve 
my  judgment  in  the  discussion  so  as  to  study  the  facts  as  independently 
as  possible  of  the  technical  controversies  that  have  gone  on  between 
the  two  schools.  I  shall  therefore  proceed  to  define  and  illustrate  the 
function  of  Apprehension  as  I  intend  to  use  the  term,  as  if  it  were  a 
distinct  function  from  those  already  considered,  which  it  may  or  may 
not  be  so  far  as  I  am  at  present  concerned. 

I  think  different  schools  have  given  Apprehension  different  ranges 
of  capacity,  some  including  in  it  the  "  perception  "  of  external  "  reality," 
others  limiting  it  to  the  consciousness, of  "  phenomena,"  according  to 
their  philosophic  view  generally.  This  circumstance  makes  it  difficult 
to  present  a  definition  without  becoming  complicated  in  suggestions 
and  associations  predetermined  by  the  controversies  and  conceptions 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  99 

of  these  various  schools.  I  intend,  however,  to  avoid  identification 
with  either  of  the  two  generally  opposing  disputants  in  any  definition 
that  I  adopt,  even  if  it  be  embodied  in  the  language  of  one  or  the 
other. 

It  is  probable  that  the  mental  interest  which  tried  to  escape  from 
certain  doctrines  of  scepticism  has  given  rise  to  the  various  ways  of  re- 
garding apprehension.  On  the  one  hand  it  was  not  possible  to  escape 
the  admission  of  error  in  various  complex  mental  acts  like  judgment  and 
reasoning,  and  on  the  other,  the  limitations  of  sensation,  could  not  be 
disputed.  Hence  the  real  or  apparent  necessity  for  distinguishing  a 
function  for  obtaining  the  actual  certitude  which  we  have  in  many  of 
our  conceptions  and  which  we  are  not  disposed  to  surrender.  This 
situation  has  seemed  to  make  it  convenient  to  apply  some  term  like  In- 
tuition or  Apprehension  to  a  process  lying  between  sensation  and  the 
various  complex  processes  usually  denominated  as  judgment,  apper- 
ception and  reasoning  and  which  would  be  devoid  of  the  objections  to 
all  of  them,  as  sources  of  certainty.  Something  was  wanted  for  the 
expression  of  directness  or  immediacy  and  certainty  at  the  same  time 
and  it  was  assumed  that  apprehension  or  intuition  supplied  this  want 
simply  by  giving  it  that  definition.  The  difficulties,  therefore,  which 
I  have  to  approach  in  the  definition  of  the  term  arise  out  of  the  danger 
of  being  involved  in  conceptions  and  associations  which  I  wish  to  ex- 
clude from  the  term,  and  which  maybe  comprehended  in  the  following 
three  facts  :  (a)  the  difference  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  nature  and 
range  of  the  function  so  denominated ;  (<S)  the  equivocal  import  of 
the  term  in  both  common  and  psychological  usage ;  (c)  the  element- 
ary and  fundamental  character  of  the  act  as  often  or  usually  conceived. 
To  define  it  in  one  way  would  be  to  beg  the  question  of  philosophy 
with  one  school,  and  to  define  it  in  another  way  would  be  to  beg  the 
question  with  the  opposite  school.  Thus  to  make  it  the  act  by  which 
we  immediately  know  an  external  "  reality"  as  such  might  offend  the 
sceptic  or  transcendental  idealist  who  may  not  care  to  admit  the  direct 
u  knowledge "  of  an  external  world.  To  define  it  as  a  combining 
process  merely  would  offend  the  realist  and  conflict  with  the  nature  of 
the  various  synthetic  ideational  processes  involved  in  the  higher  intel- 
lectual acts.  Again  if  it  be  a  simple  and  ultimate  act  of  mind,  im- 
mediate and  irreducible,  some  will  tell  us  it  is  not  definable  at  all,  but 
that  it  is  like  any  absolute  which  is  not  subject  to  analysis  and  defini- 
tion of  the  ordinary  kind.  But  in  spite  of  these  real  or  supposed  diffi- 
culties and  variations  of  view  there  is  one  common  characteristic  by 
which  every  conception  of  the  term  may  be  denoted,  and  which  does 


IOO  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  require  us  to  take  sides  with  any  special  school  of  philosophy  re- 
garding any  supposed  implications.  This  meaning  of  the  term  will 
comprehend  the  elementary  characteristics  of  every  mental  act  in 
which  a  fact  of  any  kind  gets  recognition  or  a  place  in  consciousness. 

Apprehension,  therefore,  as  I  shall  define  it  and  as  I  shall  use  the 
term,  is  that  act  of  the  subject  by  which  it  becomes  aware  of  a  fact  as 
distinct  from  its  occurrence  and  our  interpretation  of  it  as  an  occur- 
rence. This  definition  of  it  clearly  distinguishes  the  act  from  reflex  ac- 
tions which  take  place  in  the  same  organism  but  are  not  conscious  or 
accompanied  by  consciousness,  and  also  from  that  conception  of  sen- 
sations which  describes  them  as  passive  responses  to  stimulus.  Appre- 
hension is  supposed  to  be  a  positing  act,  sensation  a  condition.  But 
whether  we  can  distinguish  the  two  or  not  from  each  other  Appre- 
hension is  here  defined  as  the  consciousness  of  a  fact  rather  than  the 
mere  occurrence  of  it.  Where  it  becomes  intuition  of  one's  own 
states  it  gets  the  name  of  self -consciousness.  It  is  the  act  of  "  per- 
ceiving" in  connection  with  any  state  of  consciousness  recognized  as 
a  fact  or  "  experience." 

Let  me  illustrate.  The  consciousness  of  a  color,  of  a  sound,  of  a 
taste,  of  a  tactual  feeling,  of  an  act  of  memory,  of  an  act  of  attention 
is  an  apprehension.  I  do  not  say  that  the  consciousness  of  a  tree,  of 
a  horse,  of  a  mountain,  etc.,  is  an  apprehension,  as  such  examples  will 
come  up  again  under  another  process.  I  confine  my  conception  of 
the  intuitive  act  to  the  simplest  possible  object  of  consciousness.  I 
may  name  it  an  individual  simple  quality,  as  given  in  sensation  or 
mentation.  I  would  distinguish  apprehension,  as  I  define  it,  from  the 
mental  act  "  perceiving"  that  any  of  these  simple  qualities  were  such. 
Hence  I  mean  to  call  attention  to  the  circumstance  that  we  may  and 
perhaps  must  distinguish  between  the  consciousness  of  a  color,  sound, 
etc.,  and  the  consciousness  that  these  "  percepts  "  are  color  or  sound. 
The  consciousness  that  a  color  is  a  color  either  involves  the  discrimi- 
nation of  this  object  from  others,  or  is  so  closely  allied  to  the  concep- 
tion of  such  discrimination,  that  I  must  at  least  allow  for  that  possible 
interpretation  of  it  and  make  clear  that  I  mean  to  exclude  from  the 
apprehensive  act  all  discrimination  from  it  and  assimilation  of  other 
objects  to  it.  If  there  is  no  distinction  between  the  consciousness  of  a 
color  and  the  consciousness  that  the  color  is  such,  then  I  am  willing  to 
identify  the  two  forms  of  statement,  but  only  on  that  condition.  What 
I  want  clear  is  the  distinction  between  the  mere  consciousness  of  a 
fact  and  the  consciousness  that  this  fact  is  discriminated  from  or  com- 
pared with  another,  and  to  limit  the  proper  meaning  of  apprehension 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  IOI 

to  the  former  act.  I  exclude  from  its  objects  all  such  complex  wholes 
as  "tree"  "horse,"  "man,"  "world,"  "government,"  "religion," 
etc.,  though  the  "  concept "  of  any  of  them  as  a  represented  image,  or  as 
some  conceived  quality  representing  them,  may  be  an  object  of  appre- 
hension and  so  indicate  such  an  act.  But  the  full  meaning  of  the 
"  concept"  as  a  name  for  a  group  of  qualities  and  relations  will  not 
properly  be  an  object  of  apprehension,  unless  simultaneously  repre- 
sented in  consciousness,  which  may  be  impossible.  However,  refine- 
ments aside,  the  clear  conception  of  the  limits  of  the  process  is  found 
in  the  simplest  possible  object  of  the  act  and  this  will  be  the  simple 
qualities  of  sensation  and  mentation. 

Before  we  go  any  farther  in  this  matter  it  will  be  important  to  ex- 
amine the  relation  of  this t process  as  defined  to  sensation.  I  have  in- 
dicated that  any  particular  sensation  in  the  consciousness  of  the  fact  is 
an  apprehension,  and  it  is  necessary  to  ask  how  I  would  distinguish 
between  sensation  and  apprehension.  Is  there  any  difference  at  all? 
Are  we  not  simply  using  different  words  for  the  same  thing  ? 

In  reply  to  these  questions  it  must  be  said  that  we  have  at  least  to 
illustrate  the  two  terms  by  precisely  the  same  facts.  Sensation  is  a 
name  for  the  same  temporal  state  of  consciousness  as  an  apprehension, 
when  illustrated  by  the  "  phenomena  "  which  we  call  sensations.  Now 
as  this  latter  term  has  come  to  exclude  the  external  stimulus  from  its 
meaning,  that  is,  as  we  cannot  consider  that  the  stimulus  is  any  part  of 
the  thing  denoted  by  sensation  or  included  in  it  as  a  "  phenomenon," 
we  have  to  conceive  it  as  a  state  of  consciousness,  as  in  the  definition. 
As  a  state  of  consciousness  therefore  sensation  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  apprehension,  since  consciousness  is  itself  a  name  for  awareness. 
If  the  terms,  sensation  and  apprehension,  have  any  differences  of  im- 
port they  seem  to  be  slight  and  to  be  found  in  their  associated  impli- 
cations rather  than  in  the  facts  or  phenomena  which  are  their  essential 
meaning.  No  doubt  some  associated  implication  of  an  external  world 
is  connected  with  the  term  sensation,  its  relation  to  the  external,  its 
conception  as  an  effect  of  stimulus,  but  these  are  no  part  of  the  "  phe- 
nomenon "  conceived  as  a  state  of  consciousness  alone.  Whether  it  is 
possible  to  conceive  sensations  as  unrelated  to  an  external  object  is  an- 
other question.  But  we  certainly  do  not  suppose  or  conceive  them  as 
either  representative  of  such  objects  or  as  constituted  by  them,  but  as 
constituted  by  the  state  of  consciousness  which  is  so  named  for  the  pur- 
pose of  distinguishing  it  from  states  which  have  no  such  apparent 
cause.  Within  the  limits  of  sensations  therefore  apprehension  denotes 
the  same  facts  and  if  it  has  any  difference  of  import  at  all  it  lies  in  its 


102  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

direct  implication  of  reference  to  an  object,  not  necessarily  external, 
but  simply  an  object  of  consciousness  if  only  the  mental  state  itself. 
That  is,  it  expresses  awareness,  "perception,"  the  immediate  con- 
sciousness of  the  fact  which  the  term  sensation  names,  and  when  we 
come  to  examine  carefully  what  we  mean  by  sensation  as  a  certain  type 
of  consciousness  we  find  our  conception  so  implicated  with  this  aware- 
ness that,  but  for  certain  historical  associations  in  philosophical  theories 
we  could  not  distinguish  between  sensation  and  sensory  apprehension 
in  any  respect.  At  the  same  time  there  is  a  difference  between  the  two 
terms,  but  it  is  not  a  difference  of  qualitative  import.  It  is  a  difference 
of  range  or  extension.  Apprehension  comprehends  the  "perceptive" 
consciousness  applied  to  other  states  besides  sensation.  All  the  acts 
of  mind  or  subject  directly  aware  of  themselves  are  apprehensions. 
That  is,  all  our  mental  states  may  become  objects  of  the  particular 
process  which  we  call  apprehension  or  intuition  as  facts  of  "  experi- 
ence." Hence  the  term  has  specific  reference  to  the  simple  act  of 
"knowing"  without  regard  to  content  "  known,"  the  act  which  directly 
in  presentation  is  aware  of  a  particular  fact  or  facts  as  "  experience  " 
at  least.  The  range  of  this  goes  beyond  sensations  and  takes  in  any 
state  of  mentation  whatever,  so  that  apprehension  differs  from  sensa- 
tion only  in  the  range  of  its  application.  It  is  the  common  factor  of 
sensation  and  mentation,  and  the  one  that  gives  sensation  its  meaning 
as  a  state  of  consciousness. 

The  consequence  is  that  I  shall  make  no  such  distinction  between 
sensation  and  apprehension  as  is  customary  with  those  who  regard 
them  as  distinct  functions  of  mind.  Neither  shall  I  definitely  iden- 
tify them  as  functions.  I  do  not  consider  that  the  problem  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  requires  either  their  distinction  or  their  identification  as  func- 
tions, assuming  as  some  do  that  they  may  occur  independently  of  each 
other.  Even  supposing  them  different  functions  they  are  so  articu- 
lated that,  so  far  as  the  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  is  concerned,  they 
may  be  treated  as  the  same  fact  in  the  field  of  sensation.  In  that  field 
they  are  certainly  the  same  numerically  and  thus  indistinguishable, 
whatever  else  we  may  suppose  them  to  be.  We  often  find  sensation  so 
described  and  defined  that  it  appears  as  sornething  antecedent  to  appre- 
hension and  consciousness,  and  wherever  this  meaning  prevails  there 
is  the  tendency,  when  forced  to  explain,  to  conceive  the  fact  as  identi- 
cal with  the  neural  action  which  is  neither  constituted  by  the  con- 
sciousness we  know  nor  accompanied  by  it,  as  reaction  time  indicates. 
But  the  moment  that  we  are  interrogated  we  adopt  the  conception  that 
sensation  is  a  state  of  consciousness  and  we  arrive  at  the  position  which 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  1 03 

compels  us  to  identify  the  fact  of  sensation  with  apprehension  in  time 
at  least,  if  not  as  a  function.  The  only  reason  for  ever  implying  a 
difference  between  the  terms  is  in  the  fact  that  we  generally  conceive 
sensation  as  an  object  of  apprehension  without  ever  conceiving  sensa- 
tion as  having  an  object,  while  we  always  speak  and  think  of  objects 
as  different  from  the  acts  of  consciousness  which  refer  to  them.  That 
is,  act  and  object  of  reference  are  supposed  to  be  different  from  each 
other,  while  sensation  is  only  a  state  conceived  without  special  refer- 
ence to  an  object,  even  though  we  conceive  it  in  reference  to  a  subject 
as  its  ground.  But  I  think  that  this  subject  in  consciousness  is  an  ob- 
ject of  reference,  so  that  again  the  sensation  becomes  identical  with  an 
apprehension.  Consequently  I  shall  not  treat  them  so  far  as  episte- 
mology  is  interested,  as  qualitatively  different  but  only  in  range  of  ap- 
plication, the  essential  characteristic  of  apprehension  being  the  same  as 
that  which  makes  even  sensation  interesting  and  important  in  "  knowl- 
edge "  and  only  its  application  to  states  not  uniformly  associated  with 
external  "  reality  "  affects  its  range  of  meaning,  not  its  nature.  It  will 
be  seen,  therefore,  why  I  have  spoken  of  sensory,  mental,  and  mne- 
monic apprehension  in  the  analysis  of  the  problem. 

What  has  been  wanted  in  the  discussion  of  the  problems  of  epis- 
temology  is  a  term  to  distinguish  a  certain  process  from  other  proc- 
esses having  a  more  complex  content  or  implications,  and  one  that 
could  be  synonymous  with  a  degree  of  firmness  in  conviction  that  is 
not  always  associated  with  certain  other  mental  acts.  Apprehension 
has  consequently  denoted  a  process  to  be  clearly  distinguished  from 
all  the  synthetic  processes  of  intelligence  such  as  perception,  conper- 
ception,  apperception  and  ratiocination.  How  it  is  so  distinguished 
will  appear  when  these  are  discussed.  But  I  may  make  its  meaning 
clear  by  distinguishing  it  from  association  and  inference,  assuming 
that  these  are  sufficiently  clear  at  present  not  to  require  definition, 
except  that  I  must  refer  to  that  ambiguity  of  the  term  "association" 
which  makes  it  now  equivalent  to  conscious  synthesis,  or  simultaneous 
holding  of  more  than  a  single  object  of  consciousness,  and  now  to  mere 
reproduction  of  the  past  which  is  unconscious  and  not  synthetic  at  all, 
so  far  as  present  objects  in  consciousness  are  concerned.  The  first  of 
these  meanings  is  a  form  of  apperception  as  I  shall  define  it.  The 
second  is  simply  the  act,  all  unconscious,  which  calls  up  a  past  fact 
some  way  or  other  related  to  the  one  present  in  consciousness.  Thus 
to  illustrate  both  reproduction  and  inference,  I  have  a  present  sensation 
of  yellow  color  of  a  certain  specific  character.  Association  or  repro- 
duction simply  calls   up  in   consciousness   the  past   "experience"  or 


104  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sensation  appropriately  related  to  the  present  one.  It  does  not  com- 
pare them  and  it  does  not  interpret  them.  The  past  "experience" 
may  have  been  connected  with  an  orange.  The  recall  of  this  past  and 
its  relation  to  a  subject  is  not  the  necessary  interpretation  of  the  pres- 
ent sensation.  But  if  we  infer  that  the  present  sensation  is  caused 
by  the  same  object,  or  by  the  same  kind  of  object,  as  the  past,  we  are 
performing  an  act  quite  distinct  from  the  association  or  reproduction, 
even  though  this  latter  is  an  essential  condition  of  the  occurrence  of 
the  inference.  We  may  also  infer  the  possibility  of  other  sensations 
connected  with  the  same  object  and  in  that  way  anticipate  "experi- 
ence "  or  sensation,  say  of  taste  or  resistance.  The  apprehension  is  of 
the  present  quality  "  experienced."  It  is  a  presentation  or  the  act 
aware  of  the  presentation,  while  the  inference  is  only  of  its  possibility 
or  probability  under  the  appropriate  conditions. 

This  comparison  of  apprehension  with  reproduction  and  inference 
indicates  two  things  which  are  not  united  in  either  of  the  two  latter. 
It  indicates  that  we  mean  to  denominate  by  apprehension  a  present  act 
of  consciousness  in  which  the  object  is  also  present,  while  reproduction 
has  no  object  present  until  after  it  has  acted,  when  the  state  becomes 
some  other  act  of  ' '  knowledge  "  and  inference  has  no  present  object 
for  its  referee  but  only  for  its  datum  or  point  de  repere.  Apprehen- 
sion has  an  object  for  both  its  referee  and  its  datum.  It  is  therefore  a 
name  for  a  present  rather  than  an  expected  or  past  event  in  con- 
sciousness. 

This  object  of  apprehension  must  be  noticed.  It  is  the  direct  and 
immediate  fact  of  which  consciousness  takes  cognizance  or  is  aware  as 
present.  I  may  represent  it  as  of  three  general  kinds.  This  is  to  say 
that  there  are  three  general  classes  of  objects  of  which  apprehension 
may  be  cognizant.  There  are  (a)  space,  (£)  time,  and  (c)  events. 
Space  is  that  characteristic  which  we  notice  especially  in  visual  sensa- 
tions as  a  concomitant  or  indistinguishable  quality  in  connection  with 
color,  the  expansion,  extension  or  reciprocal  exclusion  (auseinander) 
of  the  points  constituting  the  expanded  mass  of  color.  A  similar  sense 
of  expansion  or  extension  is  noticeable  in  tactual  and  muscular  experi- 
ences. But  in  making  this  an  object  of  apprehension  I  do  not  mean 
to  imply  that  the  process  is  aware  of  it  necessarily  as  space  or  a  distinct 
quality  from  the  sensory  datum  as  a  whole  with  which  it  is  found,  but 
that  it  is  simply  aware  of  a  fact  that  may  on  further  analysis  and 
investigation  deserve  the  name  of  space  as  distinguishable  from 
other  incidents  of  "  experience."  It  is  simply  a  quale  in  the  totality 
called  visual  sensation  in  all  ordinary  "perception."     We  may  call 


PRIMARY  PROCESSES.  1 05 

this  object  the  "  form  of  external  intuition  "  after  the  manner  of  Kant 
if  we  like,  but  I  prefer  to  avoid  that  expression,  partly  because  it  is  i:ot 
self-interpreting,  and  partly  because  I  do  not  wish  to  identify  the  con- 
ception of  it  taken  here  with  Kantian  philosophical  implications  based 
upon  the  view  represented  by  that  expression,  even  though  they  happen 
to  be  correct  in  fact,  which  is  a  disputed  point.  But  it  is  at  least  the 
characteristic  of  all  sensations  with  which  it  is  associated  at  all  and 
involves  no  variation  of  kind  as  in  the  color,  or  tactual  element  of  the 
sensations.  These  vary  in  kind  or  degree  in  a  way  not  associated  with 
the  space  element,  and  so  we  get  a  common  conception  of  the  space 
quale  which  enables  us  to  speak  of  it  as  generic  and  more  essential,  as 
it  were,  to  such  "experience."  Whether  it  is  subjective  or  has  a 
meaning  for  an  external  "  reality"  of  the  thing  thus  apprehended  I  do 
not  care.  That  is  a  question  for  later  consideration.  All  that  I  require 
of  it  as  an  object  of  apprehension  is  that  it  shall  be  an  immediate 
**  percept "  of  the  subject  along  with  what  is  called  sensation,  whatever 
its  nature  or  meaning.  Time  is  a  similar  quale  in  both  sensation  and 
mentation.  In  Kantian  phrase,  it  is  the  form  of  both  internal  and 
external  "experience."  It  is  expressed  by  duration,  succession  (nach- 
einander) .  As  an  object  of  apprehension  it  is  like  all  other  objects  of 
it,  an  ultimate  datum  of  consciousness.  By  "  events  "  as  objects  of 
apprehension  I  mean  what  generally  passes  for  phenomena.  I  avoid 
this  term,  however,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  complicate  present  matters 
with  the  equivocations  of  the  term  "  phenomenon,"  which  now  denotes 
"appearances"  and  again  "changes"  which  may  not  be  "appear- 
ances "  at  all,  except  in  the  Platonic  sense.  Moreover  also  I  do  not 
wish  to  express  the  idea  of  "  things"  as  substances,  as  external  "  real- 
ities," but  only  "  facts  of  experience,"  however  we  may  come  to  con- 
sider them  later.  I  mean  to  apply  the  term  to  both  external  and  internal 
"  events,"  facts  which  represent  the  occurrences  supposed  to  be  in  an 
external  world  and  those  supposed  to  represent  an  internal  world.  I  do 
not  mean  to  imply  that  apprehension  necessarily  distinguishes  between  an 
internal  and  external  "  reality,"  but  only  that  the  facts  or  events  which 
may  be  its  objects  directly  are  those  which  we  come  to  distinguish  in 
that  way,  if  not  at  first,  certainly  when  "  knowledge  "  has  advanced  to 
a  complex  stage.  Nor  would  I  say  that  apprehension  even  distinguishes 
them  as  events.  This  may  require  a  comparison  with  something  not 
an  event.  All  that  I  mean  is  that  there  are  facts  of  consciousness 
whose  nature  comes  to  be  "  known  "  as  events  at  least  and  that  they 
seem  to  be  the  primary  data  for  the  reflective  functions  of  intelligence. 
These  are  to  be  considered  the  "  given"  data  for  systematic  ideation. 


106  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  purpose  of  supposing  or  asserting  such  a  process  as  apprehen- 
sion is  to  have  a  name  for  that  simple  act  which  gives  us  a  certainty  as 
to  the  most  elementary  facts  of  "knowledge,"  or -the  facts  of  which 
we  are  most  certain  in  our  convictions.  Sensation  having  been  sup- 
posed to  be  a  subjective  fact  in  relation  to  stimulus  does  not  express  the 
idea  of  decisiveness  which  is  associated  with  the  idea  of  apprehension. 
Moreover  sensation  does  not  express  the  notion  of  being  an  act  which 
is  like  attention  in  its  directive  or  referential  meaning,  as  apprehen- 
sion does.  But  however  this  may  be,  the  exigencies  of  philosophic 
thought  gave  rise  to  the  term  which  would  combine  all  the  assertiveness 
of  judgment  and  all  the  immediacy  of  sensation,  while  it  excluded  the 
synthetic  nature  of  judgment  in  connection  with  which  illusion  and  error . 
were  found,  at  least  in  some  of  its  manifestations.  It  is  noticeable,  there- 
fore, that  apprehension,  as  a  process  of  "  knowledge,"  represents  an  act 
that  gives  a  certain  quantum  of  certitude  at  least  and  has  associated  with 
its  import  the  positiveness,  positing,  or  decision  that  affects  the  notion  of 
"  judgment"  wholly  apart  from  the  question  whether  it  is  synthetic  or 
not.  Apprehension,  therefore,  expresses  a  simple  act  of  consciousness 
with  an  object  of  which  we  can  be  certain,  and  without  regard  to  any 
question  affecting  its  complexity  as  an  object,  though  that  object  may 
be  only  simple  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Apprehension,  therefore,  shall  be 
treated  as  the  simplest  function  of  consciousness  in  the  determination 
of  certitude  as  an  element  of  "  knowledge."  In  this,  however,  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  apprehension  is  either  the  first  temporally  or  the 
only  condition  of  certitude  as  to  facts  or  "  knowledge,"  but  that  either 
the  process  or  its  object  is  the  simplest  with  which  an  analysis  and 
discussion  of  complex  "knowledge"  must  begin.  A  more  complete 
statement  of  its  place  and  function  in  the  general  question  will  appear 
in  the  summarized  account  of  the  problem.  At  present  I  am  content 
with  the  definition  of  the  act  and  of  its  relation  to  sensation  and 
mentation. 


CHAPTER  V. 
CONDITIONS  OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE. 

In  a  previous  chapter  I  showed  that  the  term  "knowledge"  some- 
times expressed  certitude  of  conviction  and  sometimes  the  unification 
of  "experience."  This  was  indicated  for  the  purpose  of  calling  atten- 
tion to  two  distinct  problems  which  passed  under  that  single  term.  I 
also  pointed  out  the  fact  that  in  solving  the  problem  in  any  form  we 
had  to  distinguish  between  the  process  by  which  either  result  was  ob- 
tained and  the  product  or  result  itself.  That  is  to  say,  "  knowledge" 
is  a  name  for  a  process  as  well  as  a  product,  the  process  being  named 
as  the  means,  evidence,  or  explanation  of  the  way  in  which  the  prod- 
uct is  obtained.  Thus  we  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  sensation  is 
the  process  by  which  we  obtain  a  "  knowledge"  of  the  external  world. 
Where  we  treat  this  purely  as  an  affection  of  the  organism,  apprehen- 
sion, "  perception,"  intuition  are  named  as  the  processes  determin- 
ing a  conviction  of  external  "  reality."  Judgment  and  reasoning  come 
in  as  names  for  processes  giving  more  complex  conceptions  in  "  knowl- 
edge." But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  analysis  of  "  knowledge"  brings 
us  to  the  consideration  of  processes,  the  chief  matter  of  interest  is  the 
product  after  all,  as  this  is  the  subject  of  scepticism  rather  than  mental 
activities.  This  is  apparent  in  the  very  heading  of  this  chapter  where 
I  have  spoken  of  "synthetic  knowledge."  The  illustrations  of  what 
this  is  will  make  the  fact  still  more  clear.  For  instance,  such  concep- 
tions as  "  universe,"  "  evolution,"  "  Copernican  astronomy,"  "  machin- 
ery "  are  not  the  product  of  any  single  function  of  intelligence,  nor  of 
several  functions  at  any  one  time.  How  do  we  obtain  these  and  the 
truths  for  which  they  stand  ? 

In  the  analysis  of  the  functions  covering  the  whole  field  of  "  knowl- 
edge" the  reader  will  recall  that  I  recognized  but  two  functions  of 
consciousness  as  required  for  the  explanation  and  origin  of  all  our 
"  knowledge."  These  were  Apprehension  or  Intuition  and  Cognition 
or  Judgment.  I  have  shown  what  apprehension  supplies  and  it  re- 
mains to  study  cognition  and  the  principles  by  which  it  effects  its 
work.  Apprehension  was  concerned  with  the  simple  objects  of  "  ex- 
perience "  unsystematized  and  unrelated,  as  in  the  individual  states  of 
sensation  and  mentation  with  the  facts  representing  their  objects.     But 


108  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

we  come  now  to  those  complex  ideas,  if  I  may  use  that  expression,  or 
synthetic  conceptions  and  judgments,  which  have  always  excited  inter- 
est both  for  the  process  of  their  acquisition  and  for  the  test  of  their 
validity.  It  is  in  this  field  of  cognition  or  synthetic  conceptions  that 
illusion,  error,  and  fallacy  most  easily  arise.  We  discover  that  con- 
victions, to  which  we  had  tenaciously  held  as  self-evident  or  supposedly 
irrefutable,  are  exposed  to  doubt  and  even  become  obsolete.  Others 
we  still  cling  to  as  necessary  for  the  regulation  of  conduct,  and  conse- 
quently we  seek  for  some  criterion  to  distinguish  between  the  true  and 
the  false,  and  so  to  certify  our  hesitating  beliefs.  This  certification 
varies  between  the  assignment  of  the  process  by  which  the  belief  is 
formed  and  the  cohesiveness  of  the  product  formed.  For  example, 
we  have  the  conceptions  of  external  "reality"  substance,  causality, 
soul,  God,  immortality,  etc.,  and  in  the  course  of  time  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  all  of  them  is  brought  into  question.  When  this  has  been 
done  various  devices  have  been  employed  to  defend  the  validity  of 
some  or  all  of  them.  "  Intuition,"  "  intuitive  principles,"  "  a  priori 
truths,"  "  categories  "  are  terms  that  have  been  used  or  coined  for  the 
purpose  of  certifying  certain  of  these  conceptions,  such  as  substance, 
causality,  external  "reality,"  etc.  Ontological,  cosmological,  and 
teleological  proofs  have  been  the  means  of  fortifying  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  God,  and  various  resources  employed  to  fortify  the  belief 
in  a  soul  and  its  survival  after  death.  All  these  comprehensive  con- 
ceptions are  preceded  by  simpler  complex  ideas  in  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual which  are  traceable  to  the  same  general  processes.  It  will  be 
necessary,  therefore,  to  determine  the  area  of  complex  conceptions 
over  which  the  discussion  is  to  extend. 

There  are  two  general  divisions  of  conceptions  which  I  shall  have 
to  note  in  the  determination  of  this  area.  They  are  first  the  division 
into  Singular  and  General  concepts,  and  second  that  into  Concrete  and 
Abstract.  A  singular  term  or  concept  is  represented  by  a  group  of 
facts,  attributes  or  properties  which  are  not  repeated  as  such  in  any 
other  individual.  That  is,  the  name  for  the  group  applies  to  no  other 
group,  or  no  other  individual.  This  class  of  concepts  is  illustrated  by 
proper  names.  We  might  also  consider  in  the  same  way  every  indi- 
vidual group  of  facts  or  properties  in  the  presentations  of  apprehension, 
in  case  such  groups  are  possible.  This  class  represents  the  purest 
form  of  concrete  conceptions.  Singular  concepts  are  only  concrete. 
A  general  concept  is  one  which  represents  a  number  of  individuals  of 
the  same  kind  to  which  the  term  is  equally  applicable.  Thus  '  tree,' 
'animal,'  'vertebrate'  are  examples  of  this  class.     These  terms  may 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  1 09 

stand  for  a  group  of  qualities  as  singular  terms  do,  but  if  so  this  group 
must  be  of  a  like  kind.  The  general  term  takes  no  account  of  quali- 
ties that  are  not  common  to  all  the  individuals  composing  the  class. 
It  may  even  be  limited  to  the  one  quality  that  is  common.  There  is, 
however,  a  characteristic  of  general  terms  or  conceptions  which  must 
be  noticed.  They  may  be  regarded  from  two  points  of  view.  These 
are  called  their  intension  and  extension.  Their  intension  is  their 
qualitative  power  :  their  extension  is  their  quantitative  power.  Their 
intension  denotes  the  qualities  for  which  they  stand  :  their  extension 
refers  to  their  numerical  capacity  or  the  fact  that  they  apply  to  more 
than  one  individual,  even  any  indefinite  number  of  them.  In  their 
intension  they  denote  one  or  more  like  qualities ;  in  their  extension 
they  may  denote  numerical  wholes  including  resemblances  and  differ- 
ences. That  is  to  say,  in  their  extension  they  are  taken  or  conceived 
concretely,  represented  in  consciousness  by  the  individual  wholes  which 
help  to  constitute  the  class  numerically,  while  intensively  they  are 
thought  of  in  terms  of  their  common  properties. 

Before  anything  further  is  said  about  general  terms  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  define  and  illustrate  concrete  and  abstract  concepts.  A  concrete 
concept  is  one  which  represents  either  a  single  subject  of  qualities  or 
an  attribute  thought  of  as  an  attribute,  or  even  a  present  group  of  them 
thought  of  as  such.  As  said  above  the  best  illustration  of  a  concrete 
term  is  the  Singular  concept.  It  is  a  pure  concrete.  An  abstract 
concept  is  one  which  represents  any  fact  or  property  conceived 
as  if  apart  from  the  subject  to  which  it  actually  belongs  and  repre- 
sented grammatically  as  itself  a  subject  of  qualities.  Thus  '  sweet- 
ness,' 'alacrity,'  'virtue'  are  abstract  concepts.  They  are  also 
nothing  else  in  comparison  with  the  concrete.  That  is,  they  axe  pure 
abstracts. 

It  is,  however,  only  in  connection  with  the  distinction  between 
Singular  and  General  concepts  that  the  terms  concrete  and  abstract 
have  any  importance  in  the  problem  of  knowledge  as  I  expect  to  dis- 
cuss it.  It  is  the  fact  that  General  concepts  may  be  described  as 
mixed  concrete  and  abstract  terms.  In  their  intensive  or  qualita- 
tive import  they  denote  only  a  part  of  the  real  things  to  which  they 
apply,  namely,  the  common  properties  and  hence  may  be  regarded  as  ab- 
stract. In  their  extensive  or  quantitative  import  they  may  be  described 
as  concrete  because  they  are  names  for  the  group  of  properties  consti- 
tuting the  individual  wholes  in  the  class.  This  fact  of  a  mixed  charac- 
ter affects  the  question  of  the  processes  involved  in  their  formation. 
This  will  appear  in  its  proper  place.     For  the  present  it  suffices  to 


HO  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

know  that  the  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  representing  synthetic  con- 
ceptions begins  with  the  explanation  of  the  formation  of  Singular  and 
General  concepts,  and  as  all  possible  concepts  of  the  human  mind  may 
be  included  in  one  or  the  other  or  both  of  these  classes  this  problem 
also  ends  with  the  same  results,  though  it  may  be  in  exceedingly  com- 
plicated forms.  I  need  not  take  any  special  account  of  collective 
concepts  as  these  may  be  treated  as  either  singular  or  general.  I  am 
concerned  only  with  the  fact  of  synthesis  as  the  fundamental  one  after 
simple  apprehension  is  explained  or  defined.  I  intend  to  assume, 
what  I  think  is  an  indisputable  fact,  that  all  possible  conceptions  and 
beliefs  can  be  reduced  to  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  classes  of  con- 
ceptions, so  that  whatever  process  explains  them  in  their  simplest 
form  will  explain  them  in  their  most  complicated  form. 

I  shall  treat  propositions  as  simply  more  complicated  conceptions. 
So  far  as  I  can  see  they  are  nothing  more  than  syntheses  for  which  we 
have  not  adopted  single  terms  to  denote  their  meaning.  For  example, 
the  concept  '  man '  is  a  name  for  a  certain  group  of  qualities,  whether 
intensively  or  extensively  considered,  and  these  qualities  are  so  ap- 
parent, analytic  in  Kant's  phrase,  that  we  do  not  require  to  indicate 
them  when  the  term  is  used.  But  if  I  require  to  speak  of  any  charac- 
teristics which  are  not  analytically  suggested,  say  in  the  proposition, 
'  man  is  a  laughing  animal,'  I  am  obliged  to  employ  a  '  judgment '  in- 
stead of  a  singular  term.  If  we  had  a  singular  term  like  'man'  for 
'  laughing  animal '  we  should  not  require  to  use  the  proposition  that 
4  man  is  a  laughing  animal,'  but  simply  the  single  term.  Just  as  I 
should  have  to  employ  some  proposition  like  '  the  vertebrate  which  is 
a  rational  being,  etc.,  is  a  biped,  social,  religious,'  etc.,  if  I  did  not 
have  the  term  "  man  "  to  denote  the  group  of  qualities  indicated.  This 
is  to  say  that  the  same  "  judgment "  is  involved  in  the  formation  of  the 
syntheses  expressed  in  conceptions  as  in  propositions  and  the  same  in 
propositions  as  in  conceptions.  Propositions  are  only  economic  de- 
vices to  prevent  the  multiplication  of  language.  So  far  as  the  deriva- 
tion of  "  knowledge  "  is  concerned  they  have  to  be  treated  in  precisely 
the  same  way  as  conceptions. 

Now  how  is  synthesis  possible,  to  parody  Kant's  way  of  putting 
the  question  ?  I  am  not  asking  when  or  how  it  is  valid,  but  only  how 
it  is  effected.  The  question  of  explanation  and  validification  I  pro- 
pose to  keep  separate  from  each  other,  as  is  not  always  done.  I  am 
only  asking  how  we  effect  this  synthesis  in  "knowledge,"  how  do  we 
come  to  group  qualities  and  individual  wholes  in  the  way  in  which  we 
do  it  as  a  fact. 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  Ill 

If  we  look  for  a  moment  at  apprehension  we  can  understand  more 
clearly  what  is  meant  by  this  question.  We  found  apprehension  to 
represent  a  kind  of  immediate  and  direct  "  knowledge."  In  it  the 
subject  comes  into  immediate  contact,  as  it  were,  with  the  fact 
"  known."  The  fact  "  known "  is  presented  immediately  to  con- 
sciousness, and  it  is  a  single  fact.  It  does  not  represent  a  group  of 
different  properties  in  the  same  individual  whole.  The  fact  appre- 
hended is  a  single  quality  and  even  this  may  not  be  thought  of  as  a 
quality,  though  it  is  this  in  fact.  No  attempt  is  made  by  apprehension 
to  conceive  or  interpret  the  relative  import  of  any  fact.  It  is  simply  a 
presented  ' '  experience,"  a  conscious  fact,  and  in  so  far  as  the  synthesis 
of  which  I  am  speaking  is  concerned,  is  a  single  isolated  fact,  simple 
in  nature  and  without  synthetic  elements.  Now  it  happens  that,  in 
such  conceptions  as  "  Charter  Oak,"  or  "tree,"  there  are  represented 
qualities  or  "  percepts  "  that  are  either  not  apprehended,  all  of  them, 
by  the  same  sense  or  not  apprehended  by  different  senses  at  the  same 
time,  but  are  nevertheless  in  some  way  assigned  to  the  same  center  of 
reference,  that  is  have  the  same  referee.  The  question,  therefore, 
how  is  synthesis  possible,  pertains  to  this  result.  How  do  we  come  to 
form  systems  of  conceptions  which  constitute  what  I  have  called  syn- 
thetic "  knowledge"?  How  do  we  combine,  or  come  to  combine  the 
objects  of  apprehension  so  that  the  synthesis  represents  what  we  call  a 
concept  as  distinct  from  a  "  percept "? 

The  general  answer  which  I  give  to  this  question  is  expressed  in 
the  process  of  cognition  or  judgment.  I  have  adopted  these  terms  to 
express  the  generic  character  of  all  intellectual  processes  beyond  ap- 
prehension. In  the  adoption  of  them  it  will  be  noticed  that  I  have 
widened  the  common  import  of  the  term  "  judgment  "  to  include  what 
is  commonly  expressed  by  conception,  judgment  and  reasoning,  as  in- 
dicated heretofore.  I  use  the  term  cognition  as  one  convenient  philo- 
logically  to  suggest  the  synthetic  nature  of  the  intellectual  process 
concerned,  and  the  term  judgment  to  express  both  the  assertory  or 
positing  character  of  the  act  and  the  affiliation  of  the  doctrine  to  be 
presented  with  the  general  tendency  of  thought  in  and  since  Kant. 

It  is  in  the  function  or  result  of  judgment  that  the  question  of  truth 
or  validity  has  always  been  raised.  When  any  assertion  is  made,  the 
sceptic  puts  in  his  query  for  the  ground  of  the  assertion.  He  asks, 
"  How  do  we  know?"  As  indicated  above  the  answer  to  this  question 
has  been  embodied  in  various  expressions  like  "intuition,"  "intuitive 
principles,"  etc.  If  asked,  for  instance,  how  we  knew  that  God 
existed,   the  answer  was  that  in  its   last   analysis  it  represented  the 


H2  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

application  of  the  "  intuitive  principle  "  of  causality  to  the  phenomena 
of  nature.  If  asked  how  we  knew  that  an  external  world  existed  we 
received  some  such  answer  as  that  it  was  "  intuitively"  known,  that 
it  was  an  immediate  object  of  "  perception  "  and  not  subject  to  doubt, 
etc.  This  way  of  solving  the  question  gave  rise  to  a  system  of  so- 
called  "  intuitive  principles"  which  were  treated  as  the  basal  assump- 
tions of  all  intellectual  processes  of  the  higher  sort.  In  the  Kantian 
system  they  received  the  name  of  "  Categories  of  judgment."  It  was 
the  English  school  that  confined  itself  to  phrases  like  "  intuitive  truths." 
What  was  meant  in  both  schools  was  that  there  were  certain  "  laws  of 
thought,"  ultimate  or  fundamental  assumptions,  necessary  assumptions, 
if  you  like,  which  lay  at  the  basis  of  all  intellectual  synthesis.  Unfor- 
tunately the  assumption  of  them  wras  applied  equally  to  determine 
explanation  and  validification  at  the  same  time.  It  may  be  that  the 
final  analysis  will  show  that  this  can  be  done  in  some  instances,  but  I 
shall  not  confuse  the  two  questions.  The  laws  of  thought  mayor  may 
not  be  necessary,  may  or  may  not  validate  assertion,  so  far  as  I  am 
concerned.  I  shall  merely  occupy  myself  with  the  explanation  of 
synthesis  by  indicating  the  processes  and  the  assumptions  involved  in 
effecting  the  synthesis.  The  tendency  to  synthesis  occurs  in  the  dis- 
position to  unify  "experience."  Now  on  what  principles  can  we  or 
do  we  unify  "  experience"? 

The  demand  for  synthesis  arises  when  we  discover  that  facts  are 
not  isolated  things;  when  we  discover  that  "  phenomena "  exist  in 
relations ;  when  we  observe  that  events  begin  in  time  and  we  wish  to 
know  why  they  occur  at  all ;  when  we  wish  to  know  why  certain 
facts  are  found  together  instead  of  separately  from  each  other.  We 
seek  the  meaning  of  facts,  their  interpretation,  their  indication  of  some- 
thing more  than  themselves.  All  of  this  implies  unity  and  synthesis. 
On  what  principles  does  this  synthetic  action  of  the  subject  proceed  ? 
What  assumptions  do  we  make,  whether  necessary  or  contingent,  when 
we  thus  form  judgments  unifying  or  synthetizing  "  experience"? 

The  English  school  answered  this  question  in  the  general  form  of 
"  intuitive  and  necessary  truths,"  which  it  did  not  systematically  classify. 
Kant  answered  it  by  his  system  of  categories.  These  were  regarded 
as  the  principles  of  judgment,  and  indicated  by  him  to  be  the  "  formal 
principles"  of  the  same.  But  whether  "formal"  or  "material"  they 
were  the  conditions  of  synthetic  intellection  or  thought. 

In  order  to  show  how  cognition  or  judgment  effects  its  syntheses  it 
will  be  necessary  to  exhibit  a  table  of  principles  on  which  it  proceeds, 
and  it  will  be  best  to  examine  the  Kantian  system   in  order  to  show 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  113 

how  this  table  of  principles  both  grows  out  of  that  system  and  how  it 
differs  from  it. 

Quantity,  quality,  relation  and  modality  were  not  properly  "cate- 
gories" in  the  Kantian  system,  but  the  names  for  the  various  types  of 
them.  I  need  not  repeat  them  here,  as  I  can  assume  an  adequate 
knowledge  of  them  for  my  purposes  at  present.  Nor  need  I  repeat 
the  criticisms  which  have  often  been  made  regarding  them  and  the 
manner  in  which  Kant  obtained  them.  All  that  I  require  to  remark 
is  the  fact  that  they  were  drawn  from  formal  logic  and  used  to  charac- 
terize the  various  forms  of  judgment.  Now  it  is  noticeable  that  Kant 
does  not  engage  in  any  discussion  of  the  general  problem  of  judgment 
in  the  theory  of  "knowledge,"  nor  does  he  provide  any  systematic 
analysis  of  his  problem  which  would  exhibit  the  generic  function  of 
judgment,  though  I  think  it  only  fair  to  say  that  he  most  probably  con- 
ceived it  as  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  all  "knowledge"  beyond 
sensation  (Empfindung  and  Wahrnemung) .  His  "understanding" 
(Verstand)  probably  had  no  other  function.  But  I  think  at  the  same 
time  that  he  does  not  make  this  view  as  clear  as  he  should  have  done. 
But  whether  this  is  true  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  he  began  his  work 
with  assumptions  drawn  from  the  formal  logic  of  his  time  and  compli- 
cated it  with  conceptions  of  that  subject  in  a  way  that  makes  it  neces- 
sary briefly  to  review  its  nature  in  order  to  rightly  understand  the 
functions  which  Kant  assigned  to  the  categories  and  to  prepare  the 
way  for  modifying  his  doctrine  while  accepting  the  main  contention 
that  synthetic  "knowledge"  is  determined  by  the  action  of  "cate- 
gories." 

The  proper  function  of  logic  has  not  always  been  clear.  It  has 
fluctuated  between  a  wider  and  a  narrower  conception.  This  is 
especially  true  since  Kant  whose  example  in  the  Kritik  made  it  more 
or  less  convertible  with  the  idea  of  epistemology  and  many  German 
writers  still  treat  it  as  such.  Aristotle,  of  course,  conceived  it  as  the 
organon  of  "knowledge"  generally,  but  scholastic  writers,  while  they 
conceived  it  as  the  organon  of  "  knowledge,"  reduced  this  to  what  we 
call  formal  logic  and  made  this  convertible  with  the  ratiocinative 
processes.  This  was  the  conception  of  it  at  the  time  of  Kant.  But 
though  the  definition  of  it  was  that  it  concerned  the  laws  of  thought 
it  was  not  always  made  clear  whether  the  laws  of  thought,  in  so  far 
as  they  determined  legitimacy,  extended  over  conception  and  judgment, 
or  were  limited  to  the  ratiocinative  process.  But  when  it  is  noticed 
that  there  were  no  rules  for  determining  the  validity  of  conception  and 
judgment  and  that  the  validity  of  reasoning  seemed  to  be  the  important 


114  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  supreme  object  of  logical  science,  it  becomes  apparent  that  we 
may  treat  conceptions  and  judgments  as  constitutive  materials  of  the 
syllogism.  This  is  the  way  that  they  have  usually  been  treated,  espe- 
cially in  all  modern  times.  The  syllogism  is  an  instrument  or  mechanism 
which  has  its  elements  and  these  have  to  be  defined  and  explained  in 
order  to  make  the  general  subject  clear.  These  elements  are  concep- 
tions and  judgments.  The  definition  and  explication  of  their  meaning 
does  not  vindicate  their  validity,  but  only  indicate  their  function  in 
constituting  the  conditions  under  which  the  syllogism  is  formed  and 
reasoning  exercised.  Consequently  logic  became  a  science  of  the 
validity  of  the  ratiocinative  process.  As  this  pix>cess  was  not  de- 
pendent upon  the  validity  of  any  of  its  constituent  elements  or  matter, 
but  only  by  the  acts  by  which  the  conclusion  or  inference  was  drawn 
in  conformity  with  certain  principles,  it  was  not  necessary  to  raise  any 
questions  regarding  the  functions  of  conception  and  judgment  in  the 
problem  of  "knowledge,"  because  the  only  "  knowledge"  immediately 
concerned  was  the  ratiocinative.  If  then  the  legitimacy  of  our  reason- 
ing process  be  the  main  problem  of  formal  logic,  conception  and  judg- 
ment have  a  very  subordinate  place  in  it.  The  question  of  their 
validity  or  invalidity  does  not  affect  the  issue  of  reasoning,  whatever 
may  be  said  about  the  material  truth  of  the  conclusion.  This  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  the  laws  for  valid  reasoning  may  be  inde- 
pendent of  the  criteria  for  the  validity  of  conception  and  judgment. 
Now  when  this  is  once  admttted  it  will  be  apparent  that  we  can  re- 
ceive no  help  from  formal  logic  and  its  accessories  in  the  more  funda- 
mental problem  of  "  knowledge." 

The  most  important  circumstance  to  be  noted  after  the  above  con- 
clusion has  been  stated  is  the  fact  that  the  legitimacy  of  the  syllogistic 
process  depends,  for  its  external  credentials,  upon  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  the  propositions  constituting  it.  The  rules  for  determining 
when  it  is  valid  and  when  not  are  embodied  in  the  moods  and  figures, 
which  are  based  upon  the  characteristics  of  quantity  and  quality  in  the 
propositions  involved  along  with  the  general  principle  of  identity.  The 
conceptions  or  categories  of  relation  and  modality  have  no  place  what- 
ever in  this  question.  Owing  to  this  fact  they  have  gradually  dropped 
out  of  the  discussions  of  formal  logic,  though  they  receive  cursory 
mention  occasionally  because  of  the  inertia  of  tradition  in  the  treat- 
ment of  logic.  The  effect  of  all  this  has  been  to  make  the  subject  of 
logic  formal  in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  is  often  supposed,  as  it  totally 
excludes  the  material  truth  of  every  proposition  from  its  consideration. 
This  is  concealed  from  the  general  student,  and  often  from  the  teacher 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  115 

himself,  by  the  fact  that  we  are  constantly  taught  that  logic  is  a  method 
of  proving  the  truth.  This  is  correct  enough  under  limitations.  But 
it  is  nothing  more  than  a  guide  to  the  correct  systematization  of  prop- 
ositions, an  arrangement  for  guiding  thought  in  its  transitions  so  that 
error  does  not  creep  into  results  when  it  is  not  in  the  premises.  That 
is  all  it  can  accomplish  in  its  formal  function.  Ratiocination  can  be 
legitimate  whether  the  judgments  involved  are  true  or  not.  Under 
this  conception  of  the  matter  the  syllogism  is  not  concerned  with  the 
truth  of  either  premise  or  conclusion,  but  only  with  the  process  of 
transition.  The  real  question  of  "knowledge"  is  thus  referred  to 
other  than  ratiocinative  processes  for  its  material  characteristics. 
Whether  the  ratiocinative  process  is  of  the  nature  of  judgment  or  not 
has  to  be  determined  by  the  functions  assigned  to  that  process,  but 
with  the  conception  of  formal  logic  as  just  indicated  it  is  evident  that 
the  problem  of  "  knowledge"  lies  wholly  outside  its  province. 

Now  whether  the  fundamental  and  comprehensive  function  of 
"  knowledge  "  shall  be  assigned  to  judgment,  after  discovering  that  its 
origin  is  not  ratiocinative,  will  depend  upon  two  questions  :  (1)  What 
is  "knowledge"?  and  (2)  What  range  of  application  shall  be  given  to 
the  term  "  judgment "  ? 

In  his  system  Kant  has  not  made  clear  what  he  meant  by  "  knowl- 
edge." We  are  never  informed  whether  it  is  certitude  of  conviction 
or  the  unification  of  experience.  It  is  apparent  on  the  surface  that  he 
has  the  latter  conception  in  mind,  though  he  may  tacitly  assume  that 
it  is  this  unification  of  experience  that  determines  the  measure  of  cer- 
titude in  all  cases,  as  this  seems  to  be  the  position  taken  by  some 
writers,  and  Kant  has  recognized  that  consistency  is  at  least  a  negative 
criterion  of  truth.  I  may  agree  that  both  factors,  unification  and  cer- 
titude, enter  into  complete  "knowledge,"  but  this  does  not  affect  the 
fact  that  they  are  separate  factors.  Each  has  its  own  function  or  cri- 
terion in  the  problem.  But  the  failure  to  analyze  the  issues  in  a  way 
to  recognize  the  two  aspects  of  the  problem  causes  a  concealment  of 
the  fundamental  question,  namely  the  distinction  between  the  validity 
of  a  process  and  its  function  in  unification.  It  is  certitude  that  is  far 
more  closely  related  to  validity  than  systematization.  Besides  this 
question  of  certitude  was  the  issue  raised  by  Hume  and  not  the  problem 
of  unification  at  all.  The  problem  of  scepticism  is  that  of  certitude 
and  not  that  of  unification,  and  any  attempt  to  answer  its  question  by  a 
process  of  unification  indicates  either  an  ignorance  or  an  evasion  of 
the  issue.  If  it  is  a  problem  to  show  how  I  come  to  have  certain  con- 
ceptions the  process  of  unifying  experience  may  be  an  adequate  ex- 


1 1 6  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

planation  of  the  result,  but  it  is  not  a  certification  of  it.  Generally  in 
the  history  of  philosophy,  and  especially  after  Descartes  and  Hume  the  ' 
problem  of  "knowledge"  was  to  determine  what  I  could  be  certain  of 
and  therefore  what  I  could  accept  as  true,  not  merely  how  did  I  get  it 
or  how  "  complex  ideas  "  originate.  The  primary  question  was, '  what 
can  I  accept  as  true '  ?  This  was  what  was  meant  by  the  query,  '  what 
can  I  know '  ?  or  '  what  can  I  believe '  ?  no  matter  how  I  got  it.  That  this 
certitude  of  conviction  was  implied  in  the  term  "knowledge"  is  appa- 
rent in  the  Kantian  system,  though  it  is  not  distinctly  and  consciously 
recognized  and  separated  from  the  question  of  unification  which  seems 
to  be  the  main  purpose  of  Kant  to  explain  in  his  conception  of 
"  knowledge  "  as  synthesis.  In  assigning  the  functions  of  the  cate- 
gories he  showed  that  it  was  this  synthesis  that  he  had  in  mind.  Con- 
sequently the  impression  left  by  his  system  is  that  "  knowledge"  ap- 
plies to  the  product  of  judgment  and  not  to  other  processes.  On  this 
view  of  the  case  it  would  be  excluded  from  sensation  and  "  perception," 
which  might  not  exclude  certitude  as  to  the  facts  or  phenomena  of 
"  experience."  Just  at  the  point  where  Kant  should  have  defined  the 
limits  of  extension  for  the  term  "  knowledge,"  indicating  whether  it  had 
any  application  to  the  certitude  of  immediate  apprehension  or  not  and 
thus  showing  whether  he  was  conscious  of  the  equivocal  import  of  the 
problem  to  be  solved,  he  has  allowed  himself  to  concentrate  so  much 
emphasis  upon  synthesis  as  the  fundamental  conception  of  "knowl- 
edge "  that  he  forgot  what  the  problem  of  Descartes  and  Hume  was, 
and  conceived  it  after  the  manner  of  Locke  as  a  question  of  derivation 
rather  than  certification. 

In  addition  to  defining  the  sphere  of  "  knowledge,"  whether  limited 
to  the  syntheses  of  judgment  or  extending  to  the  field  of  apprehension, 
he  should  have  made  it  clear  whether  he  admitted  judgment  into  "  per- 
ception "  or  not.  If  it  did  not  enter  into  the  process  of  "  perception,"  it 
would  be  clear  from  the  wide  function  which  he  at  least  tacitly  ascribes 
to  judgment  that  "knowledge"  in  Kant's  sense  was  convertible  only 
with  the  systematization  of  experience  and  obtained  no  certitude  which 
was  not  imported  into  it  from  that  experience.  If  it  did  constitute  a 
part  of  the  process  of  "  perception,"  then  Kant  has  not  fully  explained 
his  doctrine.  In  fact  he  simply  played  fast  and  loose  about  this  point 
in  a  way  that  makes  almost  any  statement  about  it  possible,  so  that  it 
is  only  a  matter  of  individual  opinion  as  to  what  his  real  intentions 
were.  It  is  evident  in  any  case  that  he  intended  to  superpose  judgment 
upon  "experience,"  whatever  that  meant,  making  judgment  an  addi- 
tional function  of  consciousness.     It  was  customarv  at  his  time,  and 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  117 

even  later,  to  consider  judgment  as  arising  after  sensation  and  "  percep- 
.  tion  "  have  done  their  work,  and  after  conceptions  have  been  formed,  so 
that  in  this  view  of  the  process  it  was  one  unifying  experience  and  not 
giving  content  to  it,  or  in  any  way  a  part  of  it.  It  is,  of  course,  only  a 
matter  of  definition  whether  this  limitation  of  its  function  shall  be  ac- 
cepted or  not,  and  if  it  did  not,  with  this  limitation,  solve  the  problem 
of  "  knowledge  "  the  process  would  have  to  be  otherwise  named.  But 
everything  in  the  solution  depended  upon  the  nature  of  the  sensation 
and  "  perception"  with  which  we  started  and  the  function  of  judgment 
associated  with  it.  If  the  primary  and  initial  processes  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  contained  valid  convictions  in  regard  to  objective  reality  judg- 
ment, in  being  merely  superposed  upon  them,  only  systematized  the 
disordered  data  of  "  experience"  and  performed  only  a  formal  service 
in  the  process.  But  if  sensation  and  "  perception  "  were  only  subjective 
states  and  gave  no  reality  but  phenomena,  judgment  would  either  have 
to  supply  the  objective  content,  the  conviction  as  to  a  reality  not  given 
in  the  "  experience,"  or  it  would  again  only  have  the  purely  formal 
function  of  unifying  phenomena,  leaving  reality  as  wholly  "  unknown" 
and  "  unknowable." 

Now  Kant  does  not  sufficiently  analyze  his  problem  and  hence  does 
not  make  it  clear  to  us  which  of  these  alternatives  he  takes.  His  actual 
treatment  of  the  subject  in  various  situations  and  the  language  employed 
would  lead  to  the  view  that  sometimes  he  took  one  of  them  and  some- 
times the  other.  For  he  speaks  of  sensation  in  a  way  to  imply  that 
it  is  a  purely  subjective  "  phenomenon  "  with  no  meaning  as  "  reality," 
unless  this  is  given  by  "perception"  (Wahrnehung) ,  and  then 
fluctuates  between  the  conception  of  judgment  as  being  "objective" 
and  as  having  a  purely  constructive  function.  But  when  we  discover 
that  his  "  objective"  is  only  "  universality,"  or  true  for  other  minds  as 
well  as  the  one  having  the  state  at  the  time,  we  see  that,  whether  with 
or  without  adequate  reason  for  belief  in  the  existence  of  other  minds 
than  his  own,  his  conception  of  "  objective"  is  only  an  equivocal  way 
of  treating  the  facts  as  subjective  and  not  necessarily  indicating  any 
external  fact  to  mind  whatever.  Hence  with  the  current  and  tradi- 
tional conception  of  judgment  as  a  functional  process  applied  to  given 
data  before  him  it  was  natural  that  Kant's  treatment  of  the  categories 
should  assign  to  them  a  purelv  formal  function  in  the  synthesis  of  "  ex- 
perience." Whatever  he  may  have  really  intended  by  it  in  the  last 
analysis  of  "  knowledge,"  the  place  that  they  actually  had  in  formal 
logic,  which  Kant  himself  considered  as  a  purely  formal  science,  inev- 
itably   suggested   the    idea  that  they  did   not  give  but  systematized 


ilS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

reality.  In  logic  quantity,  quality,  relation  and  modality  were  sup- 
posed to  be  "formal"  instead  of  "material"  elements  of  judgment, 
and  as  judgment  was  not  assumed  to  give  any  content  to  "  knowledge" 
their  "  formal "  character  was  doubly  certified  in  their  limitations, 
namely,  by  the  exclusion  of  judgment  from  sensation  and  "  perception  " 
and  by  the  traditions  of  formal  logic.  It  is  of  course  not  clear  always 
what  Kant  meant  by  making  the  categories  "  formal "  principles  of 
judgment,  as  he  so  frequently  employed  scholastic  terms  and  distinc- 
tions with  a  change  of  meaning,  but  the  genius  of  his  system,  as  ex- 
pressed in  his  insistence  upon  the  anthropocentric  point  of  view,  his 
Copernican  analogy,  justifies  us  in  assuming  that  he  did  not  mean  to 
give  them  the  "  objective  "  implications  which  some  schools  of  phi- 
losophy assumed.  But  however  this  may  be,  "  formal  "  in  usual  par- 
lance indicates  a  conception  definite  enough  in  the  definition  of  the 
elements  and  conditions  of  the  syllogism.  Here  it  denotes  merely  a 
mode  of  statement  which  is  not  at  all  concerned  with  the  subject  matter 
or  truth  of  a  proposition,  but  which  has  to  be  uniformily  stated  in  order 
that  we  may  know  what  is  meant  by  assertions.  The  inference  in  the 
syllogism  depends  on  conformity  to  these  formal  considerations  whether 
the  conclusion  as  a  proposition  be  true  or  not.  But  when  it  was  found 
that  only  quantity  and  quality  of  propositions  were  concerned  with  the 
validity  of  reasoning  the  characteristics  known  as  relation  and  modality 
were  no  longer  useful  in  the  problem  of  logic  as  the  science  of  reason- 
ing, whatever  value  they  might  have  in  defining  "  material  "  elements 
in  judgments  or  propositions  which  have  to  be  explained  in  the  problem 
of  "  knowledge."  In  the  process  of  development  these  categories  be- 
came a  part  of  the  meaning  of  propositions  and  not  their  "  form." 
This  has  especially  been  the  course  of  development  in  logic  since  Kant. 
They  are  hardly  even  mentioned  except  to  reject  them  as  irrelevant  to 
its  problems.  The  consequence  is  that  "  formal  "  obtains  a  purely 
relative  import.  That  character  which  may  be  "  formal  "  for  one  ob- 
ject maybe  "  material "  for  another.  This  is  perhaps  admitted  by 
most  philosophers  to-day,  but  the  significance  of  the  fact  for  a  modifi- 
cation of  the  problems  of  "knowledge"  is  not  sufficiently  emphasized 
and  made  use  of  in  dealing  with  the  Kantian  doctrine.  It  indicates 
a  change  in  the  character  of  the  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  of  which 
Kant  was  either  not  conscious  or  did  not  adequately  reckon  with,  if 
he  was  aware  of  it.  As  long  as  logic  was  considered  the  organon  of 
conviction  and  so  of  truth,  and  as  long  as  it  assumed  that  the  means 
to  this  end  was  the  ratiocinative  process, the  question  of  "form  "  was 
not  scrutinized  too  closely.      Scholastic  philosophers  assumed  that  the 


CONDITIONS   OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  119 

truth  was  in  some  way  fortified,  if  it  was  not  originated,  by  syllogistic 
reasoning,  and  little  attention  was  paid  to  the  distinction  between  val- 
idity of  process  and  validity  of  results,  especially  as  long  as  relation 
and  modality  were  admitted  elements  of  the  data  to  which  ratiocination 
was  applied.  Only  when  relation  and  modality  were  excluded  from 
the  "  formal  "  principles  of  reasoning  did  the  mind  become  aware  that 
the  truth  of  the  conclusion  depended  upon  the  initial  truth  of  the  prem- 
ises, while  the  legitimacy  of  the  logical  inference  was  determined  by 
the  "  formal "  principles  of  quantity  and  quality,  and  the  other  "  cate- 
gories "  had  nothing  to  do  with  its  result.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
why  relation  and  modality  dropped  out  of  consideration  in  "  formal  " 
logic,  and  henceforth  there  will  be  no  reason  for  treating  them  on  the 
same  level  or  as  in  the  same  class,  unless  we  also  intend  to  assume  that 
quantity  and  quality  may  have  other  functions  than  the  "  formal "  ser- 
vice ascribed  to  them.  But  it  is  certain,  whether  we  class  them  to- 
gether as  "categories"  or  not,  that  they  cannot  all  have  the  same 
functions  in  "formal"  logic,  in  so  far  as  the  mere  ratiocinative process 
is  concerned.  If  they  were  accepted  as  giving  meaning  or  content  to 
the  material  of  the  syllogism  it  would  be  different,  but  all  that  infer- 
ence requires  as  its  criterion  is  modes  of  statement  that  insure  the 
proper  application  of  the  principle  of  identity,  and  relation  and  modal- 
ity are  not  necessary  to  this,  unless  we  are  dealing  with  "  material" 
considerations  in  the  syllogism,  which  we  are  not  now  supposed  to  do. 
What  Kant  ought  to  have  made  clear,  if  he  saw  it  at  all,  was  that  the 
problem  of  "  knowledge"  was  prior  to  all  processes  and  conditions  of 
"  formal  "  ratiocination,  and  hence  that  his  categories  should  not  be 
drawn  from  the  principles  of  logic,  or  that  the  "  categories  "  of  quan- 
tity and  quality  could  not  have  a  "  formal "  import  in  the  theory  of 
"  knowledge."  Any  other  conception  of  the  case  would  require  us  to 
retain  relation  and  modality  as  "formal"  principles  of  reasoning 
which,  in  fact,  no  one  will  admit.  There  is  then  a  fundamental  diffi- 
culty with  Kant's  conception  of  the  categories,  unless  we  assign  the 
function  of  determining  the  meaning  of  propositions,  which  intro- 
duces the  idea  of  "  matter"  rather  than  "  form"  into  their  interpreta- 
tion. But  if  this  is  what  we  are  to  do  with  them  how  far  have  we 
gotten  in  the  problem  of  ' '  knowledge "  ?  The  function  of  deter- 
mining meaning  does  not  determine  validity,  and  it  was  validity  that 
was  required  to  answer  the  doubts  of  scepticism.  But  what  shall 
be  the  criterion  of  validity  if  the  categories  only  indicate  the  meaning 
of  propositions  and  if  meaning  does  not  guarantee  its  own  validity  ? 
In  order  to  answer  this  question  we  must  examine  for  a  moment  a 


120  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

matter  which  Kant  seems  not  to  have  noticed,  and  perhaps  could  not 
notice,  until  the  development  of  formal  logic  had  eliminated  the  con- 
sideration of  the  categories  of  relation  and  modality  from  its  functions. 
This  is  the  question  of  universality  in  judgment  and  that  of  causality, 
•assumed  also  to  be  a  category  affecting  the  "  formality  "  of  judgments. 
"*'  Universality  "  is  one  of  the  categories  of  quality  and  has  served  the 
function  of  a  criterion  of  truth  in  the  history  of  speculation  with  im- 
plications quite  distinct  from  the  other  two  categories  under  the  same 
head.  Now  Hume  had  questioned  the  validity  of  the  idea  of  caus- 
ality, though  he  did  not  dispute  that  of  universality.  Now  if  the  cate- 
gories determine  only  the  meaning  of  propositions  and  scepticism  can 
question  the  validity  of  some  of  them  it  can  be  consistent  only  in  ex- 
tending its  doubts  to  all  of  them  and  include  universality  as  well  as 
relation  and  modality  which  are  frequently  enough  disputed.  Now  as 
universality  has  often  appeared  as  a  criterion  of  truth  and  cannot  yet, 
in  the  eyes  of  Hume,  guarantee  causality,  it  is  possible  to  raise  the 
sceptical  question  with  regard  to  itself,  unless  certain  reasons  may  oc- 
cur to  render  this  impossible.  Hence,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  there  is  no 
common  characteristic  in  Kant's  system  of  categories  except  the  idea 
of  meaning  or  material  import,  and  this  neither  implied  validity  nor 
had  formal  application  in  ratiocination.  If  they  perform  "  formal  " 
functions  for  judgment  in  any  other  field  it  will  be  necessary  either  to 
extend  the  operation  of  judgment  into  sensation  and  "  perception," 
where  the  "  material"  of  "  knowledge  "  is  obtained,  or  to  assign  the  cate- 
gories no  function  but  that  of  unifying  or  systematizing  "  experience," 
which  is  Hume's  associative  synthesis  and  Locke's  formation  of  "  com- 
plex ideas  "  by  the  understanding.  To  give  validity  besides  meaning 
the  categories  should  have  some  definite  relation  or  significance  in 
"experience"  as  interpreting  it,  not  merely  synthetizing  it.  It  is 
claimed,  of  course,  that  Kant  meant  this,  but  it  is  certain  that  he  does 
not  expressly  indicate  it,  while  the  categories  are  assigned  such  a 
formal  function  in  "  knowledge  "  that  we  inevitably  conceive  them  as 
unifying  rather  than  as  interpreting  phenomena.  There  is  nothing  in 
Kant  to  show  that  he  meant  his  categories  as  modes  of  interpreting 
experience,  but  only  as  systematizing  it,  and  as  his  followers  insist  that 
he  made  "  experience  "  merely  "  phenomenal  "  there  is  no  ground  in 
his  doctrine  for  the  objective  world,  as  he  apparently  asserted  it,  but 
everything  is  purely  subjective,  as  with  the  Greek  relativists. 

There  is  a  further  confusion  in  his  treatment  of  the  categories.  He 
includes  causality  among  the  categories,  but  he  does  not  indicate  how 
this  can  be  a  "  formal  "  characteristic  of  logical  judgments.     He  gives 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  121 

no  illustrations  of  causal  judgment  and  one  is  puzzled  to  know  what 
could  be  given  for  it,  though  quantity  and  quality,  and  perhaps  re- 
lation and  modality,  are  easily  enough  illustrated.  If  causality  is  a 
"formal  "  principle  of  judgment  it  should  be  illustrated  in  a  type  of 
assertion  just  as  quantity  and  quality  can  be  illustrated.  This  simply 
shows  that  Kant  had  not  worked  out  his  doctrine  of  the  categories  as 
he  should  have  done.  Either  they  are  not  "formal"  principles  of 
judgment  at  all  or  they  must  show  a  common  feature  in  their  relation 
to  judgment.  Now  every  judgment  is  based  upon  the  connection  of 
subject  and  predicate  before  quantity  can  be  admitted  as  a  character- 
istic, thus  making  quantity  a  purely  subordinate  "  category,"  if  it  is  to 
be  treated  as  one  at  all.  The  categories,  if  they  have  any  capacity  for 
classification,  should  represent  the  proper  variations  of  the  connection 
between  subject  and  predicate.  The  characteristic  of  quantity  does 
not  relate  to  this  connection  as  such  but  to  its  extension.  It  does  not 
indicate  the  meaning  of  the  relation  subsisting  between  subject  and 
predicate  but  only  to  the  quantity  of  the  subject  to  which  the  relation 
may  be  applicable.  The  categories  of  quality  satisfy  the  principle  of 
classification,  but  those  of  modality  do  not,  as  they  represent  the  de- 
gree of  tenacity  with  which  the  mind  may  hold  the  connection.  That 
is,  they  have  to  do  with  conviction  and  not  with  the  nature  of  the 
matter  dealt  with  in  the  judgment.  It  is  thus  clear  why  scholastic 
logic  admitted  them  into  its  province,  as  conviction  had  to  be  associated 
with  the  premises  in  order  to  obtain  a  place  in  the  conclusion.  They 
thus  represented  "  matter"  and  not  "form"  in  reasoning,  and  had  to 
be  excluded  from  logic  the  moment  that  ratiocination  was  valued  only 
for  its  formal  functions.  Under  the  categories  of  relation  only  one  of 
them  can  be  illustrated  in  a  type  of  judgments.  This  is  that  of  sub- 
stance and  attribute,  but  there  is  no  form  of  judgment  for  reciprocity 
and  none  for  causality*which  cannot  be  reduced  to  that  of  substance 
and  attribute.  Hence  Kant  should  not  have  chosen  logical  "  forms  " 
for  his  categories  with  all  the  misunderstanding  which  they  were  cal- 
culated to  produce. 

Of  course,  Kant  had  in  mind,  not  the  linguistic  and  grammatical 
considerations  which  logic  in  its  formal  functions  has  to  respect,  but 
the  ways  in  which  the  mind  thinks  about  its  objects.  Laws  of 
thought  were  his  idea  of  the  categories  and  his  "  forms"  were  modes 
of  action  and  not  modes  of  expression.  But  while  this  is  the  real  point 
of  view  from  which  Kant  has  to  be  interpreted  and  represents  a  proper 
way  to  view  the  fundamental  principles  of  thought,  Kant  should  not 
have  drawn  them  from  formal  logic  and    should  have  given  them 


122  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

another  function  than  that  of  the  mere  unification  of  phenomena  or  the 
formal  systematization  of  "  experience,"  which  did  not  take  him  beyond 
Hume's  associative  synthesis.  It  may  be  that  nothing  else  is  possible. 
With  that  question  I  have  nothing  to  do  at  present.  It  is  Kant's  incon- 
sistency in  the  matter  that  is  the  subject  of  remark,  since  he  was  pre- 
tending to  refute  the  philosophy  of  Hume.  Had  he  cut  himself  loose 
from  the  limitations  of  formal  logic,  as  his  break  with  scholastic  dog- 
matism required  him  to  do,  he  might  have  seen  that  it  was  as  much  a 
duty  to  recast  the  classification  of  judgments  as  it  was  to  classify  the 
categories.  But  he  did  not  wholly  free  himself  from  the  shackles  of 
the  system  which  he  resented  and  the  consequence  was  that  he  remained 
under  the  illusion  of  the  formal  methods  which  it  was  the  genius  of 
Hume  to  have  reduced  to  extremities. 

Schopenhauer  simplified  the  matter  by  reducing  the  laws  of  thought 
to  four,  and  even  these  he  made  subdivisions  of  one,  namely,  the  Law 
of  Sufficient  Reason.  His  four  principles  were  the  ratio  essendi, 
ratio  Jiendi,  ratio  agendi,  and  ratio  cognoscendi.  These  may  be 
expressed  as  the  nature,  cause,  end,  and  evidence  of  facts  or  reality. 
I  am  not  at  present  concerned  with  either  the  merits  or  demerits  of  this 
simplification,  as  it  does  not  affect  the  problem  which  I  am  discussing, 
namely,  that  of  judgment  formally  considered,  but  only  the  possibility 
of  reducing  the  number  of  fundamental  principles  of  "  knowledge." 
When  this  is  once  accepted,  and  especially  when  we  remark  the 
possibility  of  assuming  but  one  general  principle,  that  of  Sufficient 
Reason,  or  the  tendency  to  explain  "  phenomena,"  we  may  proceed  to 
examine  the  forms  of  judgment  with  reference  to  the  embodiment  of 
this  principle  and  not  with  reference  to  the  requirements  of  formal 
logic,  which  has  to  do,  not  with  the  acquisition  of  "  knowledge  "  as 
interpretation,  but  with  the  transmission  of  it  as  conviction.  Kant  had 
neglected  to  remark  that  the  problem  of  "  knowledge,"  apart  from 
ratiocination  and  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  question  of  judgment,  was  con- 
cerned with  the  connection  between  subject  and  predicate  and  not  with 
the  principles  affecting  only  the  moods  and  figures  of  the  syllogism. 
Consequently  he  did  not  see  that  his  first  duty  lay  in  a  new  classification 
of  the  forms  of  judgments  and  then  the  determination  of  the  categories 
afterward.  In  other  words,  the  types  of  judgment  should  have  been 
the  primary  problem  of  inquiry  instead  of  merely  assuming  that  formal 
logic  determined  them,  especially  as  logic  had  been  abandoned  as  the 
primary  condition  of  solving  the  problem  of  "knowledge." 

The  criticism  of  Kant's  method  of  obtaining  the  categories  and  the 
conclusion  from  it  suggests  the  task  which  lies  before  the  epistemolo- 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  123 

gist  at  the  outset  of  his  inquiries.  This  has  been  stated  to  be  a  classifi- 
cation of  judgments.  This  duty  of  course,  is  relative  to  the  functions 
ascribed  to  judgment,  and  these  functions  in  the  psychological  analysis 
of  the  processes  of  "  knowledge"  are  so  general  that  judgment  appears 
to  represent  the  one  type  of  mental  action  to  which  all  intellectual 
synthesis  is  reducible.  What  are  the  specific  forms  of  it  that  justify 
the  assumption  of  more  than  a  single  category  or  law  of  thought? 
Either  there  will  be  only  one  form  of  judgment  with  plural  categories 
simultaneously  applicable  to  interpret  its  content,  if  there  be  more 
than  one  such  principle  at  all,  or  there  will  be  various  types  of  judg- 
ment to  suit  the  various  modes  of  interpreting  facts  of  "  experience." 

There  have  been  various  classifications  of  judgments  which  might 
be  made  to  pass  under  review  here  if  it  was  my  purpose  to  reject  any 
of  them  as  a  condition  of  adopting  the  one  which  recommends  itself 
here.  But  I  shall  treat  existing  classifications  of  judgment  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  classifications  of  the  sciences  have  been  treated,  namely, 
as  relatively  valid  and  useful.  Hence  I  shall  not  imply  any  invidious 
reflections  in  suggesting  the  classification  which  suits  the  purpose  of 
the  theory  of  "  knowledge  "  as  I  wish  to  discuss  it  here.  This  will  be 
especially  true  when  it  is  remarked  that  the  classification  which  I  pro- 
pose actually  includes  the  various  systems  which  it  might  be  supposed 
to  supplant  or  reject.     This  should  be  kept  in  mind. 

Whatever  their  content,  therefore,  I  would  reduce  all  judgments  to 
two  types  which  I  shall  call  intensive  and  extensive  judgments,  the 
terms  "  intensive"  and  "  extensive  "  being  adopted  partly  for  the  con- 
venience of  economic  expression  and  partly  as  descriptive  of  certain 
characteristics  found  in  the  judgments  so  named.  By  "intensive" 
judgments  I  mean  to  describe  those  which  express  the  relation  of 
substance  and  attribute  between  subject  and  predicate.  For  example, 
"  Snow  is  white,"  "Sugar  is  sweet,"  "Matter  is  heavy."  Nor  will 
such  judgments  as  "  John  struck  James,"  "  The  sun  heats  the  earth," 
"  Snow  melts  with  heat,"  be  any  exception  to  this  conception  of  the 
class.  We  have  only  to  observe  that  the  idea  of  "  substance"  is  rep- 
resented in  the  subject  and  that  "  attributes  "  may  be  divided  into  static 
and  dynamic,  as  is  usual  in  all  the  sciences,  whether  physical  or  meta- 
physical, to  bring  these  propositions  under  the  class  indicated.  All 
verbal  predicates,  transitive  or  intransitive,  may  be  treated  in  this  way 
for  the  sake  of  showing  the  formal  mode  in  which  the  intensive  judg- 
ment expresses  itself,  though  there  will  be  certain  philosophic  reasons 
for  keeping  the  two  modes  of  thought  distinct  from  each  other.  This 
will  be  taken  up  later,  but  in  the  meantime  we  have  only  to  recognize 


124  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  there  are  two  types  of  the  intensive  judgment,  the  one  representing 
a  static  relation  between  subject  and  predicate  and  the  other  a  dynamic 
relation  between  subject  and  object  or  two  subjects,  using  "subject" 
in  its  metaphysical  sense. 

By  "extensive"  judgments  I  mean  those. which  express  the  rela- 
tion of  species  and  genus  between  subject  and  predicate.  For  ex- 
ample, "Iron  is  a  metal,"  "Apples  are  fruit,"  "Man  is  a  biped." 
There  is  but  one  type  of  these,  and  the  nature  of  the  relation  expressed 
limits  the  form  of  statement  to  the  copulative,  and  neither  the  tran- 
sitive nor  intransitive  form  of  verbal  expression  is  possible  in  them. 
Formal  logic  requires  us  to  reduce  both  forms  to  the  latter  type,  as 
may  be  done,  in  order  to  make  reasoning  universally  applicable  to 
judgments.  This  is  rendered  possible  by  the  fact  that  the  intensive 
propositions  can  be  metamorphosed  into  the  extensive  by  substituting 
class  terms  for  the  predicate.  But  as  I  am  dealing  with  problems  be- 
yond that  of  formal  logic  I  do  not  accept  this  simplification  of  the 
matter  as  expressing  what  our  problem  requires.  Indeed  were  it  not 
that  attributes  may  be  divided  into  static  and  dynamic  I  should  have  to 
recognize  three  distinct  types  of  judgment  in  the  problem,  which  it 
would  be  convenient  for  certain  purposes  to  do.  But  as  the  act  of 
mind  explaining  a  static  attribute  by  reference  to  its  subject,  substance 
or  ground,  is  very  like  that  of  referring  an  effect  to  its  cause,  an  event 
to  its  dynamic  antecedent,  and  also  as  the  circumstance  that  all  scien- 
tific and  philosophic  reflection  inclines  to  the  reduction  of  all  attributes 
to  the  dynamic  type,  we  may  as  well  simplify  the  case  by  the  divisions 
adopted  and  resort  to  the  distinction  between  static  and  dynamic 
attributes  when  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  a  world  of  im- 
manent reality  and  a  world  of  transeunt  forces,  or  between  a  world 
without  and  a  world  with  a  commercium  of  relations,  a  monistic  and 
a  pluralistic  conception  of  things. 

There  is  a  form  of  "  thinking"  or  conceiving  facts  which  assumes 
the  expression  of  the  intensive  judgment  but  is  governed  by  the  prin- 
ciple or  category  that  determines  the  meaning  of  the  extensive  judg- 
ment. This  form  of  thinking  and  representation  is  very  common,  so 
common  that  we  might  even  say  with  some  plausibility  that  it  describes 
our  general  mode  of  thought,  and  it  might  even  be  seized  upon  by  the 
phenomenal ist  to  illustrate  and  prove  the  purely  "  phenomenal  "  and 
associative  nature  of  all  cognition  or  synthesis.  I  shall  take  this  up 
again  when  I  have  indicated  the  categories  which  regulate  synthetic 
thought  and  which  are  not  increased  or  diminished  by  this  peculiar 
mode  of  thought.     For  the  classification  of  judgments  in  form  of  ex- 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  1 25 

pression  and  for  ultimate  reflection  the  intensive  and  the  extensive  re- 
main as  the  primary  types.  The  form  that  appears  to  be  an  exception 
and  to  afford  apparent  ground  for  a  third  class  is,  in  meaning,  a  sort 
of  converse  of  the  intensive  which  simply  turns  it  into  the  extensive. 
It  arises  thus,  as  in  the  example  "  Snow  is  white."  It  may  be  claimed 
that  the  subject  "snow"  has  no  other  meaning  than  the  particular 
"  white  "  which  is  here  said  to  be  its  attribute,  and  that  we  identify  it 
by  the  perception  of  this  particular  "white."  This  is  to  say  that  we 
should  know  nothing  of  "  snow  "  but  for  the  experience  of  a  given 
quality  of  "  white."  This  is  true  enough,  whether  we  consider  that 
this  substance  is  a  synthesis  of  other  qualities  at  the  same  time  or  not. 
The  predicate  may  be  treated  as  only  a  way  of  explaining  what  we 
mean  by  the  word,  in  which  case  there  is  a  kind  of  identity  between 
subject  and  predicate.  It  is  true  that  I  come  to  know  what  "  snow" 
is  by  first  perceiving  its  quality  "white,"  and  hence  it  is  the  ratio 
cognoscendl  of  its  existence  and  so  a  criterion  of  the  conditions  under 
which  the  word  "snow"  is  applicable,  but  while  this  identifies  the 
representative  conception  of  subject  and  predicate  in  the  proposition 
and  explains  how  I  come  to  know  the  subject  "  snow,"  it  does  not 
eliminate  the  idea  of  substance  when  a  further  question  is  asked  as  to 
the  implications  of  the  predicate  as  a  phenomenon  or  attribute  demand- 
ing a  ground  or  explanation,  so  that  ultimately  the  two-fold  division  of 
judgments  still  holds  good,  except  so  far  as  we  may  desire  to  distin- 
guish between  the  causal  and  the  substantive  judgment  within  the  in- 
tensive class.  The  intensive  judgment  is  based  upon  an  (etiological 
relation  or  conception  of  subject  and  predicate. 

Now  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  intensive  judgments  express  in 
some  form  the  idea  of  ground  or  cause  as  the  relation  between  subject 
and  predicate,  whether  affirmed  or  denied.  Extensive  judgments  ex- 
press some  notion  of  identity  or  difference  between  subject  and  predi- 
cate, according  to  whether  the  relation  is  affirmative  or  negative.  The 
principles  which  thus  give  meaning  to  these  judgments  may  be  called 
in  Kant's  phrase  categories,  as  representing  laws  of  thought.  They 
indicate  the  way  in  which  the  facts  of  "  experience"  are  explained  or 
made  intelligible.  In  the  intensive  judgment  the  predicate  is  conceived 
as  a  function  or  attribute  of  something  and  as  such  is  referred  to  the 
subject  as  its  ground  or  cause  and  hence  does  not  appear  as  self- 
dependent.  In  the  extensive  judgment  the  predicate  is  not  so  referred, 
but  the  subject  is  referred  to  the  predicate  as  the  class  to  which  it 
belongs  or  does  not  belong,  and  hence  the  predicate  appears  as  the 
index  of  the  qualities  belonging  to  the  subject,  though  these  are  not 


126  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

specifically  stated.  The  object  of  the  extensive  judgment  is  to  make 
the  subject  intelligible  in  terms  of  the  predicate  or  to  indicate  the 
identity  or  difference  between  them.  It  does  not  directly  explain  in 
terms  of  causal  ideas,  but  only  indicates  that,  whatever  explanation  in 
terms  of  a  cause  be  considered,  it  is  the  same  for  subject  and  predicate. 
It  assigns  what  may  be  called  the  material  or  ontological  element  of  a 
concept  by  comparison  with  another  already  known.  The  extensive 
judgment  is  thus  based  upon  an  ontological  conception  of  the  relation 
between  subject  and  predicate. 

This  analysis  gives  us  two  fundamental  types  of  categories  as  regu- 
lative of  the  meaning  of  all  propositions  in  respect  of  the  relation  be- 
tween subject  and  predicate.  But  there  is  the  question  of  the  com- 
plexity of  meaning  involved  in  the  conceptions  of  subject  and  predicate 
and  their  quantity.  Concepts  usually  imply  a  synthesis  of  qualities, 
so  that  the  problem  of  "knowledge"  is  as  much  concerned  with  the 
determination  of  this  synthesis  as  it  is  with  that  of  subject  and  predi- 
cate. How  does  this  synthesis  come  to  take  place.  Besides  there  is 
the  question  of  the  universality  of  judgments  which  involves  the  ques- 
tion of  extending  the  assertion  or  denial  as  well  as  originally  forming 
it.  Certain  principles  or  laws  of  thought  are  involved,  in  this  as  well 
as  in  the  primary  connection  between  subject  and  predicate,  and  so 
also  in  the  synthesis  of  conceptions. 

The  consequence  is  that  we  require  other  categories  for  the  com- 
plete explication  of  judgment  in  all  its  aspects.  I  shall  therefore  enum- 
erate what  I  conceive  to  be  the  categories  necessary  to  explain  the 
fundamental  process  of  judgment  in  the  determination  of  "  knowledge." 
They  are  space,  time,  substance  and  attribute,  cause  and  effect,  unity, 
plurality,  similarity,  diversity  and  relation,  including  coexistence 
and  sequence,  and  possibly  one  might  also  include  inhesion  and  nexus, 
the  former  for  the  relation  between  substance  and  attribute  and  the 
latter  for  that  between  cause  and  effect,  although  it  is  possible  to  re- 
duce them  to  forms  of  coexistence  and  sequence.  There  are  finally  the 
categories  of  modality,  which  include  possibility,  probability,  certi- 
tude and  necessity,  certitude  being  added  to  the  list  of  Kant  and  repre- 
senting much  the  same  tenacity  of  conviction  as  necessity,  but  not  the 
same  exclusion  of  other  possibilities.  There  are  situations  in  which 
it  is  not  easy,  if  ever,  to  distinguish  between  certitude  and  necessity, 
as  the  latter  implies  the  former,  and  often  relies  upon  it  as  a  creden- 
tial. But  as  there  is  a  feeling  of  certitude  which  does  not  imply  neces- 
sity, just  as  there  is  a  feeling  of  possibility  that  does  not  imply  any 
probability  we  may  well  recognize  a  serial  order  of  states  of  conviction 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE. 


I27 


or  degree  of  tenacity  in  regard  to  beliefs  in  which  the  later  involve 
and  absorb  the  earlier  ones. 

Whether  it  is  possible  to  logically  classify  the  categories  will  de- 
pend upon  the  question  whether  any  general  principles  of  classification 
can  be  obtained.  I  think  this  can  be  done.  I  have  already  called 
attention  to  the  close  relation  between  causal  and  substantive  concep- 
tions, and  also  to  the  fact  that  identity  and  difference  have  a  sort  of 
common  function  in  determining  the  relation  between  subject  and 
predicate  in  extensive  judgments.  Both  of  them  express  some  concep- 
tion of  what  may  be  called  reality  by  which  I  may  mean  anything 
which  is  distinguishable  from  non-existence  on  the  one  hand  and  from 
relation  and  modality  on  the  other  and  so  indicating  the  facts  in  con- 
nection with  which  relation  and  conviction  are  possible.  I  may  there- 
fore give  a  table  of  classification  and  explain  it  afterward. 

C  Space. 

(  Time. 

C  Static.    Attribute. 

(Dynamic     Mode. 

( Static.    Substance.    Ground.    Noumenal. 
Reality.    \  flfflnturimt.  ] 

(  Dynamic.    Cause.    Action.    Phenomenal. 

t  Unity.     Nutnero  eadem. 


Categorie 


Metrological. 


Phenomenological. 


etiological. 


Relation. 


Ontological. 
( Coexistence. 


Identity. 


(  Similarity.    Arte  eadem. 
i  Plurality.     Numero  diversa. 
(Diversity.     Arte  diverse 


(.Sequence. 

(Possibility. 

\Necessity. 

The  principles  employed  in  the  classification  of  the  sciences  (p.  25) 
explain  the  grounds  on  which  some  of  the  above  categories  are  reduced 
to  systematic  relations  and  no  further  elucidation  of  these  principles  is 
necessary.  I  have  treated  them  as  all  forms  of  Reality  in  the  sense 
defined.  The  only  thing  that  remains  to  be  made  clear  is  the  treat- 
ment of  identity  and  difference,  and  their  relation  to  unity  and  plural- 
ity. We  are  all  familiar  with  the  usage  of  the  terms  '*  Identity"  and 
"  Contradiction  "  as  principles  of  thought  in  formal  logic,  but  we  do 
not  always  stop  to  consider  their  equivocal  import.  Besides  in  meta- 
physical and  epistemological  problems  it  is  better  to  use  the  term 
"Difference"  than  "  Contradiction"  which  conceals  the  meaning  im- 
portant for  other  than  logical  relations.  Hence  I  have  here  employed 
the  terms  "Identity"  and  "  Difference  "  to  denote  two  categories  of 


128  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

thought  reducible  to  the  general  type  of  ontological  or  "material" 
principles  of  conception.  But  they  each  have  a  double  or  equivocal 
import.  There  is  mathematical  and  generic  "  identity,"  and  mathe- 
matical and  generic  "difference."  Mathematical  "identity"  is  ex- 
pressed in  logic  by  the  judgment  "  A  is  A,"  in  which  we  denote  one 
and  the  same  thing.  There  is  no  distinction  whatever  between  sub- 
ject and  predicate,  not  even  in  number.  Hence  there  is  an  application 
of  the  principle  of  identity  which  means  numerical  identity,  numericaL 
unity  or  individuality,  and  is  represented  in  thought  by  sameness  in 
space  or  what  we  may  call  punctual  identity.  Hence  the  maxim 
nu?7iero  eadem  as  expressing  its  nature.  But  generic  "  identity  "  im- 
plies plurality  of  objects  and  likeness  of  kind.  It  is  represented  by  the 
extensive  judgment  "  A  is  B."  The  judgment  affirms  the  inclusion 
of  A  in  B  as  of  the  same  kind  though  mathematically  different.  Hence 
the  maxim  arte  eadem  as  expressing  the  nature  of  subject  and  predicate. 
The  same  general  principles  apply  to  the  import  of  the  category  of 
"  difference."  The  differences  between  objects  may  be  either  mathe- 
matical or  generic.  They  may  be  of  the  same  kind,  but  individually  or 
numerically  distinct,  and  hence  the  difference  gives  rise  only  to  plurality. 
Possibly  the  formal  statement  of  this  fact  would  be  "  A  is  not  A," 
where  we  have  two  A's  compared.  Again  the  differences  between 
objects  or  between  aspects  of  the  same  object  may  be  of  kind  and  not 
merely  in  number.  Hence  we  have  qualitative  difference  to  express  by 
the  term  which  often  coincides  also  with  the  mathematical  difference. 
Hence  we  may  represent  it  by  the  judgment  "A  is  not  B."  The 
maxims  numero  diversa  and  arte  diversa  represent  respectively  the 
mathematical  and  the  generic  differences  of  comparison.  I  have  taken 
the  term  unity  to  represent  mathematical  identity,  and  similarity  that  of 
generic  identity,  while  plurality  represents  that  of  mathematical  differ- 
ences, and  diversity  that  of  generic  difference.  It  is  similarity  and  dif- 
ference, however,  that  possess  the  largest  share  of  the  functions  involved 
in  the  unification  of  "phenomena"  in  general,  even  though  the  ap- 
plication of  the  others  are  the  primary  condition  of  determining  the 
data  from  which  we  start  in  the  use  of  the  latter.  But  apart  from 
this  the  distinctions  were  necessary,  partly  for  the  purpose  of  recog- 
nizing the  twofold  uses  of  the  terms  "  identity "  and  "difference," 
and  partly  for  the  purpose  of  showing  later  the  separate  functions 
which  the  distinct  meanings  have  in  the  problem  of  "knowledge." 
In  the  intensive  judgment  it  is  possible  to  say  that  we  have  a  com- 
bination of  the  unity  and  diversity,  numero  eadem  and  arte  di- 
versa,   in    the  affirmative    judgment,    and    the    combination    of    plu- 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  1 29 

rality  and  diversity,  numero  diversa  and  arte  diversa  for  the  nega- 
tive judgment. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  study  the  relation  of  the  categories,  thus 
classified,  to  the  process  of  "  knowledge,"  in  its  synthetic  forms.  But 
in  order  to  do  this  it  will  be  necessary  to  recur  to  the  analysis  of  the 
various  processes  by  which  we  supposed  that  "  knowledge  "  was  ac- 
quired. Taking  Consciousness  as  a  generic  name  for  all  the  mental 
states  of  which  any  direct  account  can  be  given,  we  previously  divided 
the  functions  of  "  knowledge"  into  those  of  apprehension  or  intuition 
and  cognition  or  judgment,  the  latter  representing  the  synthetic  agen- 
cies in  the  result.  Cognition  or  judgment  was  divided  into  perception, 
conperception,  apperception,  infero-apperception  or  ratiocination,  and 
genero-perception  or  generalization.  It  remains  to  show  the  relation 
of  the  categories  to  these  various  processes  and  what  the  results  are. 
Some  preliminary  definition  and  explanation  will  be  necessary  at  this 
point. 

I  have  above  indicated  that  judgments  are  of  the  intensive  and 
extensive  types.  This  division,  however,  defines  them  in  respect  of 
their  content  or  meaning.  It  does  not  indicate  the  processes  by  which 
they  are  formed.  Besides  it  was  also  remarked  that  the  conceptions, 
forming  the  contents  or  matter  of  judgment  represent  the  result  of 
cognition  and  as  they  may  represent  a  synthesis  of  qualities  or  only  a 
simple  quality,  it  is  necessary  to  carry  somewhat  further  the  analysis 
of  judgment,  in  so  far  as  the  term  stands  for  a  process.  The 
divisions  of  cognition  into  the  several  types  of  perception,  con- 
perception,  etc.,  represent  this  analysis,  as  they  indicate  different 
applications  of  the  various  categories  either  singly  or  in  combination, 
in  the  formation  of  conceptions  and  judgments.  I  have  also  indicated 
that  the  problem  of  "  knowledge"  begins  with  the  formation  of  con- 
ceptions which  serve  as  elements  of  judgments,  and  that  the  process  of 
forming  conceptions  is  one  of  judgment  as  an  action.  Hence  it  is 
necessary  to  take  account  of  the  fact  that  conceptions  may  involve  a 
question  as  to  how  the  synthesis  of  qualities  can  take  place  for  which 
a  term  may  stand.  For  example,  "  tree,"  "  apple,"  "  man  "  are  terms 
which  represent  a  group  of  properties  and  the  question  is  how  we 
came  to  group  them  so.  The  answer  to  this  and  various  coincidental 
questions  will  be  found  in  a  presentation  of  the  several  cognitive 
processes. 

The  general  process  of  cognition  is  best  explained  by  comparison 
with  intuition  or  apprehension.  This  latter  process  we  have  shown  to 
be  concerned  with  the  primary  data  of  "experience,"  the  simple  "  facts 

9 


130  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  consciousness"  or  "  phenomena,"  whether  conceived  as  such  or  not. 
The  moment  that  any  "  experience"  is  conceived  as  a  "  phenomenon," 
quality,  property,  attribute,  event,  etc.,  it  is  thought  of  as  something 
related  to  something  else,  either  as  a  whole  of  which  it  is  a  part  or  as 
a  fact  dependent  upon  another.  But  before  any  such  conception  of  a 
fact  arises  it  is  only  a  fact,  isolated  as  it  were.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  there  is  a  remembered  time  in  consciousness  when  we  have  only 
apprehended  "facts"  not  related  in  any  way.  Nor  would  I  affirm  on 
the  other  side  that  they  are  always  conceived  as  related.  Whether 
cognition  is  as  old  as  apprehension  and  inseparable  from  it  I  need  not 
decide.  I  have  here  distinguished  between  elements  in  "  knowledge" 
which  may  be  considered  either  as  abstractions  or  as  independent  proc- 
esses. I  merely  find  that  we  can  abstract  the  antecedent  of  a  fact  and 
concentrate  the  mind  upon  the  bare  fact  and  describe  it  as  if  alone,  an 
isolated  element  of  consciousness,  and  this  non-synthetized  fact  I  speak  . 
of  as  an  intuition  or  presentation  which  is  a  datum  for  the  application 
of  other  functions  of  consciousness  than  the  merely  apprehending 
function.  Taking  the  presentation  of  a  color,  a  sound,  a  taste,  a  pain, 
or  any  individual  fact  regarded  as  an  event  in  the  external  world,  as 
something  which  arrests  attention  and  becomes  an  object  of  conscious- 
ness as  a  fact  whose  explanation  is  required,  if  it  is  conceived  as 
implying  more  than  itself,  we  have  a  situation  which  defines  the  limits 
of  apprehension  and  creates  the  demand  for  the  process  which  asserts 
more  than  the  given  fact.  This  process  I  call  Cognition.  By  it  I 
mean  the  application  of  a  category  to  a  fact  or  ''''phenomenon ,"  the 
assertion  of  the  implicate  which  the  conception  of  the  fact  or  "phe- 
nomenon" as  relative  demands.  This  application  of  a  category  is  the 
act  of  synthesis  and  will  be  adequately  explained  in  the  various  types 
of  cognition.  But  as  a  general  process  it  is  an  interpreting  act,  the 
act  by  which  the  implication  or  meaning  of  a  fact  is  determined.  As 
this  meaning  or  implication  may  be  various  there  will  be  correspond- 
ingly various  types  of  the  process. 

A  further  statement  of  an  explanatory  character  must  be  made  in 
regard  to  the  terms  which  have  been  employed  to  denominate  the 
several  forms  of  cognition.  I  intend  to  give  a  specific  meaning  to  each  of 
the  subdivisions  of  the  general  process.  This  will  be  in  one  or  two  cases 
a  new  and  narrower  import  than  the  current  use  of  the  same  term  has. 
The  others  are  somewhat  new  terms  and  will  present  no  difficulties 
after  the  definition.  The  most  important  one  requiring  precautionary 
remark  is  "Perception."  This  is  a  very  common  term  and  has  both  an 
indefinite  and  a  philosophically  specific  use.     But  even  in  philosophic 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  131 

parlance  it  is  variously  employed  to  represent  processes  which  I  pro- 
pose here  to  carefully  distinguish.  For  instance,  we  indifferently 
speak  of  the  "  perception  of  a  sound,"  the  "  perception  of  a  tree,"  and 
the  "  perception  of  a  truth,"  etc.  The  content  of  the  mental  act  in 
each  of  these  cases  is  so  different  that  we  have  to  consider  the  process 
as  different  in  so  far  as  difference  of  content  justifies  such  a  distinction. 
Such  an  act  as  a  "  perception  of  a  sound  "  I  have  defined  as  an  appre- 
hension and  not  as  a  synthetic  act.  The  "  perception  of  a  tree"  is 
certainly  synthetic  in  some  sense  of  the  term,  and  therefore  involves 
either  cognition  or  the  combination  of  either  apprehension  or  cognition 
and  inference.  Of  this  later.  In  any  event  the  synthesis  expressed 
by  the  concept  "tree"  involves  more  than  simple  apprehension  as  I 
have  considered  it,  and  so  involves  judgment  of  some  kind.  The 
"  perception  of  a  truth"  is  undoubtedly  a  judgment  and  involves  syn- 
thetic elements  more  abstract  than  "tree."  The  term  is  therefore 
equivocal,  and  in  a  proper  analysis  of  the  problem  of  "knowledge" 
this  ambiguity  must  be  recognized  and  eliminated.  I  shall  conse- 
quently use  the  term  in  a  much  more  restricted  sense  than  is  usual, 
except  when  I  put  it  between  quotation  marks  when  I  shall  recognize 
its  general  import.  When  not  so  indicated  I  shall  give  it  the  technical 
meaning  in  my  definition  of  it  which  will  be  limited  to  as  simple  a 
process  as  the  most  elementary  synthetic  act  will  permit.  Conpercep- 
tion  had  to  be  coined  to  express  a  process  more  complex  than  Percep- 
tion. Apperception  I  may  use  in  a  somewhat  restricted  sense,  though 
not  more  so  than  some  writers.  The  other  terms  will  explain  them- 
selves in  their  definition.  But  in  regard  to  all  of  them  I  must  premise 
the  statement  that  I  do  not  urge  the  common  acceptance  of  the  terms 
as  defined.  I  adopt  them  and  their  technical  meaning  solely  for  the 
purposes  of  the  present  discussion  and  for  the  proper  analysis  of  the 
elementary  problem  of  "  knowledge."  After  the  analysis  of  the  prob- 
lem has  been  recognized  as  correct,  this  being  helped  by  the  concen- 
tration of  attention  upon  technical  terms,  I  do  not  care  what  becomes 
of  the  technical  uses  of  the  terms.  They  are  here  meant  only  to  over- 
come the  influence  which  association  and  habit  have  over  all  of  us 
when  using  a  term  instead  of  the  concept  represented  by  its  definition 
and  illustration.  When  that  end  has  been  accomplished  I  may  safely 
rely  upon  any  system  of  circumlocution  to  effect  the  same  object,  and 
the  ordinary  usage  can  remain  as  it  is,  with  the  understanding  that  it 
must  be  subjected  to  the  proper  analysis  when  dealing  with  epistemo- 
logical  and  metaphysical  questions.  I  would  of  course  prefer  to  see  a 
term  used  in  its  technical  sense  and  remain  consistent  with  its  adopted 


133  THE   PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

definition  when  dealing  with  philosophic  problems,  but  it  may  be  too 
much  to  expect  that  traditionally  fixed  conceptions  can  be  easily  sup- 
planted by  the  necessities  of  an  analysis  and  it  may  not  be  required  for 
any  purposes  but  easy  and  briefly  expressed  distinctions.  The  tise  of 
a  technical  or  technically  defined  term  always  helps  to  fix  the  concept 
which  its  definition  determines,  and  if  that  is  once  effected  so  as  to  aid 
an  analysis,  we  may  safely  trust  to  the  recognition  of  the  idea  to  find 
its  own  expression  where  brevity  is  not  a  duty  or  a  necessity. 

The  problem  now  is  to  show  how  intensive  and  extensive  judg- 
ments are  formed.  The  formation  of  concepts  involves  the  same  proc- 
esses, just  as  the  judgments  involved  in  conceptual  synthesis  may  take 
either  the  intensive  or  the  extensive  form,  and  as  propositions  have 
been  explained  to  be  only  more  complex  conceptions  which  merely 
economize  language,  we  have  before  us  the  simple  synthetic  problem 
of  the  processes  involved  in  Cognition  of  all  types.  It  will  be  impor- 
tant to  keep  in  view  the  fact  that  I  desire  to  explain  the  process  con- 
sistently with  any  philosophical  theories  of  the  schools.  It  may  be 
necessary  to  repeat  this  caution  in  various  places,  as  the  employment 
of  certain  terms  may  imply  the  assumption  of  a  certain  philosophic 
and  metaphysical  doctrine  of  things  as  a  condition  of  understanding 
and  accepting  the  analysis  and  explanation  of  judgment  here  adopted. 
But  for  the  present  this  brief  remark  is  sufficient. 

Perception. 
I  shall  use  this  term  technically  to  mean  the  application  of  the  cat- 
egory of  causality  or  ground  to  the  simplest  facts  of  mental  experience 
or  the  simplest  qualities  of  reality,  namely,  an  apprehension,  whether 
of  the  internal  or  external  type.  In  other  words  perception  is  the 
synthesis  of  an  apprehension  and  what  is  implied  by  the  aetiological 
categories.  I  do  not  care  whether  this  causality  or  reality  be  treated 
as  in  its  nature  "noumenal"  or  "phenomenal."  That  is  indifferent 
to  the  question  of  the  existence  of  the  synthesis  and  what  the  implicate 
is  in  relation  to  the  facts  of  apprehension.  What  I  mean  by  the  syn- 
thesis is  that  any  given  "  experience,"  sensation  or  mental  state,  prop- 
erty or  event,  may  be  seen  and  interpreted  in  the  light  of  an  implica- 
tion of  something  else  than  itself,  and  that  the  primary  and  fundamental 
thing  so  posited  by  consciousness  is  the  cause  or  ground  of  the  fact 
apprehended,  whether  it  be  definite  or  indefinite.  It  involves  no  con- 
sideration of  time  and  space  elements,  but  only  the  conception  of  mean- 
ing in  terms  of  a  cause  or  ground  of  some  kind  at  least.  Whether  it 
is  legitimate  or  not  is  not  now  the  question,  but  only  that  it  seems  to 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  133 

be  a  natural  action  of  the  mind  in  all  stages  of  its  development.  Thus 
I  have  the  sensation  of  a  color.  I  may  explain  it  by  referring  it  to  an 
object  as  its  property.  The  thing  to  which  it  is  so  referred  is  its  cause 
or  ground.  Or  I  may  seek  for  its  cause  in  some  antecedent  fact  of  a 
"  phenomenal  "  type  and  thus  posit  a  transcendent  fact  to  make  the  ap- 
parently isolated  fact  intelligible.  But  I  do  not  have  to  go  to  the  ex- 
ternal world  as  a  condition  of  satisfying  the  aetiological  categories.  I 
may  refer  the  sensation  to  an  internal  ground.  I  interpret  the  sensa- 
tion as  my  own,  as  a  "  phenomenon  "  of  a  subject  instead  of  as  a  property 
or  quality  of  an  object.  I  do  not  require  to  go  beyond  Solipsism 
for  the  use  and  application  of  the  categories.  The  epistemological 
problem  is  satisfied  with  a  purely  subjective  point  of  view  and  the  ob- 
jective will  be  only  another  application  of  its  postulates  extending  the 
field  of  their  utility.  If  I  refer  a  fact  or  event  to  myself  as  its  cause 
or  ground  and  mean  nothing  more  than  the  cause  of  that  particular 
fact  or  event  I  have  satisfied  the  principle  of  causality  in  the  case  and 
the  question  of  an  external  cause  or  reality  will  be  either  supererogatory 
or  an  additional  problem.  As  a  fact  external  reality  has  always  been 
associated  in  some  way  or  relation  with  the  subjective  point  of  view, 
but  it  is  not  necessary  to  the  utilization  of  aetiological  categories  as 
these  may  be  satisfied  by  a  subjective  causal  reference.  The  discrimina- 
tion between  internal  and  external  "  reality"  may  be  late.  All  that  I 
am  maintaining  here  is  that  apprehension  is  never  satisfied  with  itself, 
and  that  consciousness  tries  in  some  way  to  find  the  fact  or  cause  to 
which  any  given  phenomenon  or  event  is  related,  even  if  it  cannot  get 
beyond  the  simple  self  as  this  cause  or  ground.  But  in  the  doctrine  of 
"perception"  epistemology  has  always  referred  to  the  theory  of 
"  reality  "  and  this  "  reality"  has  meant  the  existence  of  an  "  external  " 
world  other  than  the  sensations  to  be  accounted  for  either  as  the  primary 
question  or  as  the  necessary  complement  of  the  subjective  "  reality." 
In  either  or  both  of  these  points  of  view  a  subject,  or  object,  or 
subject-object,  or  object-subject,  other  than  the  phenomena  or  func- 
tions of  consciousness,  was  implied,  no  matter  what  further  investiga- 
tion might  show  that  "other"  to  be.  Now  I  am  using  the  term 
"  perception"  to  indicate  this  implication,  except  that  I  do  not  use  it 
to  imply  that  this  object  is  known,  in  the  simple  act  of  perception  as 
defined,  to  have  a  complexus  of  attributes,  such  as  is  denoted  by  the 
term  "  tree,"  "orange,"  or  "mind."  How  the  idea  of  a  "tree"  or 
"orange"  can  be  obtained  will  be  a  subject  for  later  consideration. 
Here  I  limit  the  term  perception,  as  I  intend  to  use  it,  to  the  applica- 
tion of  causality  or  ground  to  a  single  and  individual  datum  of  appre- 


134  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

hension.  I  am  supposing  that  I  have  nothing  more  to  account  for 
than  a  sensation  of  color  and  nothing  more  to  associate  with  it  than 
what  the  idea  of  a  cause  or  ground  calls  for.  Whether  any  sensation 
of  sound  or  taction  is  related  to  the  same  cause  I  am  not  supposed  even 
to  conjecture  or  imagine  as  possible.  Of  this  may  I  remain  ignorant. 
I  am  to  account  only  for  the  single  phenomenon  of  color  which  I  con- 
ceive as  a  phenomenon  or  event  which  has  somehow  or  other  come 
into  existence.  That  something  is  implied  by  it  is  necessarily  involved 
in  the  initial  conception  of  it  as  a  "  phenomenon,"  event,  or  related 
fact  and  the  only  question  is  as  to  what  we  shall  call  this  implicate. 
We  may  not  name  it  at  the  outset.  It  suffices  to  recognize  that  the 
fact  implies  this  something  other  than  the  fact  to  be  rendered  intelli- 
gible in  terms  of  a  cause  or  ground.  The  most  elementary  form  of 
this  judgment  or  application  of  the  etiological  categories  is  the  imper- 
sonal judgment.  For  example,  "it  rains,"  "  it  snows,"  "it  is  clear- 
ing," "it  blows,"  etc.  Here  the  subject  or  cause  is  not  specifically 
named.  Only  the  fact  of  a  cause  or  ground  is  indefinitely  recognized. 
In  some  respects  we  might  say  that  the  impersonal  judgment  is  only  a 
statement  of  the  fact  of  occurrence  and  not  a  stated  implication  of 
cause.  This  is  true  enough  in  so  far  as  the  explicit  recognition  of  the 
cause  or  ground  in  kind  is  concerned,  but  when  we  examine  carefully 
into  the  significance  of  the  "  it"  in  the  statement,  which  is  not  the  ex- 
pletive it,  the  idea  of  a  cause  or  ground  is  there,  but  is  so  indefinite 
that  only  the  fact  of  occurrence  is  most  apparent.  But  aside  from  the 
question  of  the  real  interpretation  of  the  impersonal  judgment,  all  that 
I  wish  to  contend  for  at  present  is  that  it  is  the  best  form  of  statement 
for  illustrating  what  is  meant  by  the  elementary  judgment  of  percep- 
tion as  its  function  is  here  conceived.  This  distinguishes  it  very  clearly 
from  such  statements  as  **  the  clouds  rain,"  "  the  weather  is  clearing," 
and  "  the  wind  blows,"  where  the  subject,  real  or  imaginary,  is  spe- 
cifically named  and  conceived,  representing  a  more  mature  stage  of 
reflection.  The  only  cause  however,  which  this  simple  perception  is 
supposed  to  determine  or  posit  is  the  single  implicate  warranted  by  the 
conception  of  the  individual  apprehension  as  a  related  fact,  a  "  phe- 
nomenon "  or  event  not  explicable  by  itself. 

The  legitimacy  of  this  process  may  be  questioned  by  saying  that  all 
of  our  "  knowledge  "  is  limited  to  "  phenomena  "  ;  that  we  "  know  " 
naught  beyond  "  phenomena."  My  reply  to  this  would  be  that,  so  far 
as  I  am  at  present  concerned,  and  so  far  as  my  definition  and  concep- 
tion of  "reality"  and  causality  are  concerned,  we  may  limit  "  knowl- 
edge" as  we  please.     I  do  not  care  whether  phenomenalism  or  nou- 


CONDITIONS   OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  135 

mcnalism,  or  both  or  neither  is  true.  Whether  the  cause  shall  be  a 
noumenon  different  absolutely  in  kind  from  all  phenomena  which  it  is 
supposed  to  explain,  or  whether  it  is  simply  another  "  phenomenon" 
like  or  different  from  the  one  in  view,  does  not  affect  the  general  con- 
ception of  the  process.  I  have  admitted  "  empirical  "causality  or 
reality  in  my  very  classification  of  the  categories.  What  I  am  con- 
tending for  is  that  the  application  of  a  category  of  causality  or  ground, 
whether  we  think  of  it  as  "  noumenal "  or  "  phenomenal,"  whether 
we  think  of  it  as  a  "  thing  in  itself"  or  as  mere  antecedent  fact,  is  the 
same  in  its  implication  when  trying  to  explain  a  given  fact  of  "  ex- 
perience." The  recognition  of  the  individual  phenomenon  of  appre- 
hension is  simply  the  occasion  and  justification  of  the  search  for  some- 
thing other  than  itself  to  account  for  it.  We  may  divide  our  opinions 
as  to  what  we  shall  call  this  "  other  than  itself,"  but  not  in  regard  to 
the  question  whether  it  is  another  fact  than  the  one  in  consideration. 
One  school  will  insist  upon  denominating  it  a  "noumenon"  or  non- 
phenomenal  reality,  and  mean  to  assert  or  imply  that  it  is  wholly  un- 
like "  phenomena  "  in  its  nature.  The  other  will  insist  upon  main- 
taining that  it  must  be  a  "  phenomenon,"  whether  this  be  the  same  or 
different  in  kind  from  that  of  which  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  antecedent 
or  cause.  But  this  "  phenomenal"  interpretation  of  the  case  does  not 
alter  the  problem.  In  both  views  ive  transcend  tlie  fact  to  be  ex- 
plained, whether  we  choose  to  call  the  transcendent  thing  a  "  phe- 
nomenon "  or  "  noumenon,"  a  "knowable"  or  "  unknowable"  real- 
ity. The  "  empiricist"  in  his  reduction  of  causality  to  antecedent  and 
in  his  application  of  it  to  any  concrete  case  of  present  event  transcends 
this  event  or  "  phenomenon  "  when  he  seeks  the  cause,  condition,  or  an- 
tecedent to  explain  his  present  fact  quite  as  much  as  does  the  anti- 
phenomenalist  in  his  resort  to  non-phenomenal  facts  or  postulates. 
The  "  empiricist  "  may  not  transcend  all  phenomena.  I  am  not  here 
asserting  that  he  does.  Of  that  in  its  place.  But  he  does  transcend 
the  phenomenon  in  question,  and  whether  the  transcendent,  or  in  Pro- 
fessor Ladd's  phrase,  trans-subjective  datum  or  suppositum,  is  other 
than  a  "  phenomenon "  of  any  kind  remains  still  to  be  decided  by 
further  inquiry.  He  always  admits  the  right  and  duty  to  so  transcend 
it  for  the  explanation,  as  no  event  explains  itself  unless  science  and 
philosophy  mean  to  commit  suicide.  On  any  theory  we  must  seek  the 
cause,  ground,  or  antecedent  in  something  that  transcends  the  fact  to 
be  explained  or  made  intelligible.  The  question  here  is  not  what  we 
shall  call  this  transcendent  fact,  but  whether  all  intellectual  synthesis  of 
the  explanatory  and  interpretative  sort  does  not  actually  so  transcend 


136  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  given  "  experience"  in  its  operations  aiming  at  satisfying  the  mind. 
Hence  I  mean  to  construct  the  theory  of  perception  so  as  to  consist 
'  with  either  view  of  our  "  knowledge  "  whether  it  be  limited  to  "  phe- 
nomena "  or  extended  to  "  noumena." 

Perception,  therefore,  as  I  mean  to  conceive  and  define  it  for  the 
purpose  of  indicating  the  primary  and  most  elementary  act  of  intel- 
lection, simply  and  only  means  that  an  individual  apprehension  has  no 
interest  for  consciousness  if  we  try  only  to  consider  it  by  itself.  It  gets 
what  interest  and  meaning  it  has  from  the  mind's  seeing  it  in  the  light 
of  a  cause  or  ground  or  antecedent  which  is  supposed  in  some  way  to 
determine  its  existence  or  to  support  it  as  a  dependent  fact.  All  that 
association  can  do  is  to  recall  some  occasion,  and  with  it  the  coex- 
istent or  antecedent  fact  that  was  found  in  its  connection,  and  assume 
that  this  circumstance  was  its  cause.  The  idea  of  cause  or  ground, 
condition  or  necessary  nexus,  comes  into  the  case  in  some  way  to  make 
the  fact  intelligible  and  to  prevent  the  mind  from  feeling  the  constraint 
to  treat  the  fact  as  spontaneous  or  inexplicable.  Before  association 
arises  and  after  it  arises  the  possibility  of  viewing  the  "  experience" 
in  isolation  from  a  definite  environment  shows  where  the  mind  looks 
for  explication,  especially  when  there  is  no  past  association  to  suggest 
the  "  empirical"  synthesis  which  that  act  of  association  indicates,  and 
this  source  to  which  it  looks  is  something  other  than  the  event  itself, 
leaving  it  open  to  decide  by  any  other  process  we  please  whether  this 
"  other  than  itself  "  is  "  phenomenal  "  or  non-phenomenal.  The  main 
point  is  to  conceive  the  simplest  act  of  judgment  as  the  application  of 
an  aetiological  category  to  an  individual  apprehension,  which  we  can 
isolate  at  least  by  abstraction  for  the  sake  of  discovering  why  we  do 
not  rest  content  with  the  mere  present  fact  of  consciousness. 

Just  when  this  act  first  occurs  in  the  life  of  consciousness  it  may 
not  be  possible  to  say.  I  would  even  admit  that  it  may  not  in  all  or 
any  cases  often  occur  in  its  simple  form  as  defined  any  more  than  that 
simple  sensations  occur  as  defined  by  the  philosopher.  But  if  it  does 
occur  historically  in  this  way,  it  is  perhaps  very  early  in  the  life  of  the 
individual.  Later  in  the  mature  consciousness  it  has  to  be  the  result 
of  deliberate  experiment  with  abstraction  of  concomitant  elements,  so 
that  it  has  to  be  determined  for  the  philosopher  by  the  result  of  analy- 
sis rather  than  by  direct  memory  of  consciousness.  We  have  to  find 
its  nature  in  the  same  way  that  we  find  the  nature  of  sensation  which 
we  never  remember  apart  from  the  complex  acts  of  consciousness  that 
constitute  the  adult  experience.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  find  the  act  in 
the  early  history  of  the  individual  in  order  to  maintain  that  it  is  prim- 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  137 

ary  and  elementary,  any  more  than  it  is  necessary  to  find  a  sensation 
without  associates.  It  is  not  the  historical  evolution  of  consciousness 
or  the  gradual  superposition  of  additional  elements  upon  the  earliest 
that  is  here  the  problem  in  order  to  explain  the  synthesis,  but  the 
question  of  discovering  the  elements  of  a  complex  process  as  observed 
in  mature  experience.  The  study  of  babies  is  no  help  in  this  problem 
and  the  whole  doctrine  of  evolution  is  irrelevant  to  it.  There  is  no 
way  of  telling  what  a  baby  or  a  dog  thinks  but  to  find  first  what  the 
intelligent  man  thinks,  as  a  condition  of  making  infant  and  animal  ex- 
perience intelligible.  Hence  I  do  not  find  myself  explicitly  obliged  to 
find  the  simple  act  of  perception  as  defined  historically  isolated  in  the 
life  of  every  individual,  in  order  to  justify  the  appeal  to  it.  I  merely 
find  that  I  have  to  assume  it  or  actually  discover  it  as  the  final  element 
in  the  analysis  of  the  complex  data  which  I  find  in  the  mature  mind. 
We  proceed  here  just  as  we  do  in  the  isolation  of  any  function  of  mind. 
We  find  variations  of  complexity  in  adult  experience  that  discover  the 
variant  in  it  which  by  that  very  fact  is  proved  not  to  be  a  necessary 
element  of  every  consciousness.  By  abstraction  of  the  various  ele- 
ments of  the  complex  I  find  that  any  one  of  them  might  take  place  in 
isolation  which  I  could  call  a  simple  perception.  Thus  suppose  I  see 
a  color  and  have  a  certain  taste  at  the  same  time  and  think  of  an  orange, 
and  again  see  a  color  and  feel  a  certain  tactile  sensation  and  think 
again  of  an  orange,  or  again  have  a  certain  taste  and  a  certain  tactile 
sensation  at  the  same  time  and  think  of  an  orange.  I  discover  in  the 
case  that  the  synthesis  of  any  two  of  the  experiences  is  not  necessary. 
Their  connection  with  each  other  is  contingent,  and  the  order  of  my 
experience  shows  clearly  enough  that  I  cannot  treat  any  one  of  them 
as  the  cause  of  the  other.  Consequently  I  consider  them  individual 
elements  of  a  whole  any  one  of  which  might  occur  in  isolation,  and 
in  fact  I  can  test  this  possibility  by  actual  experiment  when  I  please, 
and  the  idea  of  cause  or  ground  appears  in  consciousness  as  inevitably 
as  if  their  synthesis  were  present.  All  that  I  have  to  do  in  the  presence 
of  the  complex  data  of  any  given  consciousness,  which  I  recognize  as 
complex,  is  to  ask  what  I  would  think  if  only  one  of  the  quali- 
ties were  presented  to  the  mind  instead  of  the  totality  and  I  should 
find  myself  predicating  a  cause  or  ground  quite  as  readily  and  confi- 
dently as  I  do  the  singleness  or  unity  of  this  cause  or  ground  for  the 
synthesis  of  qualities.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  perception  as  I 
have  defined  it  here  is  an  actual  and  early  experience  in  the  mind's 
life  and  only  lacks  the  maturity  of  self-consciousness  and  reflection  to 
remember  it  as  a  fact.     Aside  from  the  question  whether  it  is  chrono- 


13S  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

logically  an  elementary  act,  it  is  both  logically  and  psychologically 
the  most  elementary  act  of  judgment  inasmuch  as  it  contains  in  the 
synthesis  fewer  of  the  elements  that  constitute  mature  consciousness 
and  that  do  and  must  appear  as  variants  in  it.  The  illustration  above 
given  shows  this  to  be  a  fact.  The  simplest  act,  therefore,  of  judg- 
ment is  the  reference  of  any  fact  or  event  to  a  cause,  and  this  I  have 
decided  to  call  perception.  We  may  not  at  first  separate  the  cause  or 
ground  from  the  effect  or  attribute  in  space  or  time.  We  may  do 
nothing  more  than  think  that  thei'e  is  some  reason  for  the  occurrence 
of  the  fact  or  "  phenomenon."  In  the  earliest  stages  of  consciousness 
the  experience  may  not  assume  any  division  of  aspects  or  parts.  But 
what  occurs  in  that  stage  is  not  a  matter  which  any  one  can  historically 
determine.  All  that  we  can  say  is  that,  if  at  any  time  in  the  history  of 
the  mind  no  distinction  of  cause  and  effect,  of  ground  and  attribute 
takes  place,  the  fact  of  experience  can  neither  be  a  u  phenomenon" 
nor  anything  else  of  a  relative  sort  to  consciousness.  We  would  not 
think  of  it  as  a  "color,"  "sound,"  "taste,"  or  "odor,"  as  these 
facts  are  understood  in  mature  consciousness  where  they  are  conceived 
as  events  or  changes  involving  an  implied  something  else  connected 
with  them,  even  if  we  can  neither  name  it  nor  conceive  it  in  terms 
similar  to  the  facts  presented.  We  could  only  take  them  as  inex- 
plicable facts  having  no  implications  and  no  characteristics  suggesting 
relations  of  any  kind.  It  is  the  moment  when  I  conceive  a  fact  as  an 
event  or  phenomenon  that  the  causal  ground  is  implied.  The  percep- 
tion which  I  am  defining  and  illustrating  is  the  judgment  that  arises 
when  the  mind  decides  to  view  any  or  all  events  as  such,  as  something 
beginning  in  time  or  place  and  not  of  themselves  explicable  as  having 
an  independent  existence.  We  may  not  definitely  think  or  name  the 
cause  or  ground.  We  may  not  say  "substance,"  or  "matter,"  or 
"soul,"  or  other  general  reality,  and  much  less  "brain,"  or  "  tree," 
or  "flower."  The  judgment  need  be  nothing  more  than  "some- 
thing." This  indefinite  implicate  suffices  to  exemplify  the  conception 
of  elementary  synthesis  or  explanation,  and  later  multiplied  "  experi- 
ences "  will  induce  other  elements  into  the  more  complex  syntheses. 
Later  "  experiences  "  will  also  differentiate  this  "  something  "  into  the 
particular  causes  or  grounds  of  ordinary  language  and  thought.  Finally 
by  comparison  and  the  application  of  other  categories  the  various  in- 
dividual implicates  of  simple  perception  will  become  systematically 
classified,  so  that  "  substance  "  will  stand  at  their  head  and  singular 
terms  at  the  foot  of  the  series.  The  first  step,  however  is  the  generic 
judgment  of  a  reality  other  than  the  fact  to  be  accounted  for  and  this 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  139 

judgment  is  the  primary  one,  not  involving  any  space  or  time  as- 
sumptions whatever  as  conditions  of  either  its  meaning  or  formation. 
Space  and  time  may  be  characteristics  of  each  individual  apprehension, 
but  in  perception  as  here  conceived  this  space  and  time  are  not  condi- 
tions of  the  judgment  which  is  formed  on  the  occasion  of  the  "  ex- 
perience." 

The  object  of  perception,  percept  as  I  shall  call  it  to  distinguish 
it  from  concept,  is  not  a  complexus  of  attributes,  such  as  the  concept 
"tree"  or  "horse."  If  any  such  "reality"  actually  existed  alone  it 
would  be  Herbart's  Real,  a  thing  with  but  one  attribute  or  property, 
or  an  atom  like  that  of  some  physicists  who  insist  that  a  true  atom  can 
have  but  one  quality,  and  that  if  a  number  of  attributes  are  discovered 
to  belong  to  the  same  subject  the  fact  is  evidence  that  we  have  not 
found  the  true  atom,  and  that  the  supposed  instance  is  a  compound 
such  as  we  know  water,  nitric  acid,  etc.,  to  be,  and  so  is  resolvable 
into  simpler  elements  which  might  prove  to  be  the  true  atoms. 
Whether  such  things  exist  or  not  I  am  not  concerned  to  affirm  or 
deny.  I  am  only  choosing  an  actual  mode  of  thought  to  illustrate  the 
limits  of  the  process  which  I  have  defined  as  perception  and  which,  if 
no  other  process  of  "  knowledge"  were  possible,  would  never  give  us 
anything  but  this  simple  unanalyzable  "  reality  "  for  an  object.  What- 
ever the  actual  nature  of  real  objects,  perception  is  the  evidence  of  but 
a  ground  or  cause  for  a  single  apprehension  unassociated  with  another, 
and  if  we  ever  discover  that  the  same  cause  or  ground  also  has  other 
properties  or  functions  than  that  which  excites  a  given  sensation  we 
have  to  determine  the  fact  by  other  conditions  than  those  which  I  have 
been  considering. 

CONPERCEPTION. 

I  have  distinguished  percepts  from  concepts,  the  former  represent- 
ing the  object  of  a  single  apprehension,  an  object  that  may  be  nothing 
more  than  the  idea  of  an  indefinite  cause  or  ground,  and  which  but  for 
other  considerations  might  result  in  the  conception  of  as  many  distinct 
worlds  or  realities  as  there  are  avenues  of  apprehension.  Concept 
stands  for  either  a  synthesis  of  qualities  or  a  synthesis  of  objects,  the 
former,  as  we  have  seen  above,  being  called  a  singular,  and  the  latter 
a  general  concept.  But  the  point  here  to  be  noticed  is  the  fact  that 
concept,  simply  as  a  term,  means  synthesis  of  some  kind  which 
unifies  the  application  of  the  categories  and  represents  the  first  step  in 
the  process  of  unifying  the  world  or  cosmos.  It  is  the  process  of  con- 
perception  that  begins  this  movement  and  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  forma- 
tion of  singular  concepts.     General  concepts  ai-e  the  result  of  later 


140  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  additional  processes,  the  order  of  development  being,  in  so  far  as 
simplicity  and  complexity  are  concerned,  percepts,  singular  concepts, 
and  general  concepts.     Of  this  again. 

Perception  is  a  simple  process.  Conperception,  however,  involves 
more  elements  and  conditions  than  perception.  Its  first  characteristic 
is  that  it  must  represent  the  application  of  causality  or  ground  to  two 
or  more,  or  any  conceivable  number  of  simultaneous  and  identico- 
local  apprehensions.  That  is,  it  must  represent  two  or  more  simul- 
taneous perceptions.  But  it  is  more  than  the  mere  application  of  an 
^etiological  category,  which  might  give  as  many  realities  separate  from 
each  other  as  there  are  perceptions  involved.  It  is  the  additional  ele- 
ments that  determine  its  value.  Hence  as  the  second  important  element 
and  condition  conperception  includes  space  and  time  relations.  That 
is,  space  and  time  determine  the  form  of  the  result  which  the  judgment 
effects.  If  the  apprehensions  are  incited  from  the  same  point  in  space 
and  occur  at  the  same  time  for  both  or  more  "experiences,"  the  judg- 
ment, under  the  category  of  causality  or  ground,  represents  this  object 
as  the  same  for  all  of  them,  namely,  as  a  single  subject  or  thing, 
numero  eadem,  whatever  else  it  may  be.  The  object  will  thus  be 
complex  in  respect  of  its  qualities  or  functional  activities,  numero 
diver sa,  but  simple  in  respect  to  its  space  and  time  relations,  numero 
eadem.  If  the  two  or  more  different  apprehensions  occur  in  different 
points  of  space,  at  the  same  time,  or  in  different  moments  of  time  at  the 
same  point  of  space,  the  judgment  of  causality,  ceteris  paribus,  will 
represent  as  many  different  objects  or  subjects  of  attributes,  or  things 
as  the  source  of  sensations,  objects  that  are  different  in  kind,  numero 
diversa,  whatever  else  they  may  be.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  onto- 
logical  categories  are  here  involved  in  the  product  of  conperception, 
but  only  in  so  far  as  unity  and  plurality  are  concerned.  Similarity  and 
diversity  of  kind  are  not  concerned.  I  need  not  more  than  refer  to  this 
fact  as  an  indication  of  having  remarked  it.  The  most  important  point 
to  note  now  is  the  place  assigned  to  space  and  time  as  factors  affecting 
the  form  which  the  application  of  causality  or  ground  takes.  It  refers 
the  ground  of  the  qualities  represented  in  consciousness  to  single  or 
plural  objects  according  to  the  conditions  indicated  above.  In  the  first 
and  properly  conperceptive  act,  when  the  space  and  time  are  the  same 
for  the  perceptions,  we  have  the  same  subject  or  cause  for  the  two  or 
more  attributes.  We  have  a  conpercept,  as  we  may  call  it,  in  distinc- 
tion from  percept,  and  hence  a  singular  concept  like  "Plato,"  "Bu- 
cephalus," "  Charter  Oak,"  etc.  In  the  second  form,  when  the  space 
and  time  relations  involve  the  plurality  of  one  of  them,  we  have  a 


CONDITIONS   OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  141 

plurality  of  objects  or  things,  whether  as  percepts  or  conpercepts,  the 
one  or  the  other  being  determined  by  the  simplicity  or  degree  of  com- 
plexity involved  in  the  mental  acts  at  the  time.  If  no  two  apprehensions 
occur  at  the  same  point  of  space  and  in  the  same  moment  of  time,  that 
is,  simultaneously,  there  will  be  no  conperception  at  all,  but  only  plural 
perceptions  not  involving  any  conception  of  unity  in  cause  or  ground. 
If  two  or  more  apprehensions  occur  under  conperceptive  conditions  for 
two  of  the  senses  and  two  or  more  under  conperceptive  conditions  for 
the  other  senses  there  will  be  two  distinct  conperceptions,  representing 
different  unities  for  cause  or  ground  and  hence  a  plurality  of  objects, 
but  with  each  of  them  representing  the  synthetic  act  of  conperception. 
Let  me  illustrate  the  process  and  results. 

Let  me  suppose  that  I  have  an  orange  on  my  table.  For  the  pur- 
poses of  my  illustration,  however,  I  am  not  assuming  that  the  object  is 
yet  known  to  be  an  orange  or  even  to  be  known  as  anything.  I  merely 
assume  a  case  of  complex  attributes  and  that  I  do  not  yet  know  the 
fact.  I  first  have  the  sensation  or  apprehension  of  color.  This  will 
give  rise  to  a  perception  and  nothing  more.  Suppose  also  that  I  touch 
the  object  without  seeing  it  or  having  the  sensation  of  color.  I  would 
again  have  nothing  but  a  perception  when  interpreting  the  meaning  of 
the  "  experience."  But  suppose  that  I  have  simultaneously  the  appro- 
priate sensations  of  color  and  touch  and  they  represent  the  same  point 
or  space  locality,  why  should  I  refer  the  cause  or  ground  of  the  events 
to  the  same  object  ?  Why  not  suppose  that  I  am  seeing  one  thing  and 
touching  another,  seeing  a  house  across  the  street  and  touching  the 
orange  before  me  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  is  simple.  If  I  have 
reason  to  believe,  or  actually  see  that  the  visual  apprehension  has  its 
causal  source  at  the  same  point  of  space  as  the  tactual,  both  being  sim- 
ultaneous by  hypothesis,  I  simply  use  the  principle  of  mathematical 
identity  or  unity,  in  other  words  act  according  to  the  Law  of  Parsi- 
mony, in  my  causal  judgment  and  refer  the  plural  qualities  to  the  same 
subject  or  object.  The  object  before  me  becomes  a  synthesis  of  prop- 
erties, a  single  whole  and  with  frequent  "  experience"  means  this,  so 
that  on  the  apprehension  of  one  of  them  I  may  anticipate  the  possible 
apprehension  of  another.  It  is  in  this  way  that  I  ultimately  derive  the 
basis  for  all  conceptions  of  individual  wholes  or  syntheses  of  qualities. 
This  is  the  judgment  of  conperception.  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  have 
a  sensation  of  color  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  touch,  when  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  the  two  do  not  originate  from  the  same  point  of 
space,  I  must  refer  them  to  different  realities.  Ceteris  paribus, 
it  will  be  the  same  if  the  apprehension  issue  from  the  same  point  of 


142  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

space  but  occur  at  different  moments  of  time  without  any  evidence  that 
the  cause  of  the  first  sensation  has  remained  at  the  same  point  of  space 
in  the  meantime.  The  real  conperceptive  synthesis  can  take  place 
only  in  the  unity  of  time  and  space  with  the  application  of  the  aetio- 
logical  categories,  and  we  begin  by  this  process  the  unification  of 
"experience"  and  rely  upon  it  in  all  later  "  knowledge "  to  test  the 
accuracy  and  legitimacy  of  the  anticipative  judgments  of  infero-apper- 
ception  and  genero-perception. 

It  is  not  important  to  discuss  the  origin  or  nature  of  space  appre- 
hension in  this  problem,  as  I  am  not  concerned  with  any  theory  of 
either  nativism  or  empiricism  in  the  matter  of  genesis,  or  of  subjectiv- 
ity or  objectivity  in  nature.  Whatever  its  genesis,  or  nature,  its  use  in 
conperception  is  the  same.  It  is  probable  that  visual  space,  however 
derived,  is  the  basis  for  the  assumption  of  identity  and  difference  in 
the  conditions  affecting  conperception.  For  instance,  in  the  illustra- 
tion of  the  orange,  I  can  ascertain  whether  the  tactual  sensation  orig- 
inates from  the  same  point  in  space  as  the  visual  by  noting  that  the 
point  of  fixation  for  seeing  the  color  coincides  with  the  point  of  tactual 
contact  as  visually  determined  in  the  optical  field.  Otherwise  I  should 
either  have  no  evidence  of  spatial  coincidence  or  have  to  resort  to 
other  means  for  determining  it.  The  sense  of  vision  suffices,  with  the 
adjustment  of  touch  to  its  field,  to  determine  the  coincidence,  and  that 
is  all  that  is  required  to  have  the  process  of  synthesis  effected  at  any 
time,  whether  the  ideas  of  space  and  time  be  "a  priori"  or  "em- 
pirical." 

It  will  be  interesting  to  remark  at  this  stage  of  the  problem  that  we 
have  data  for  some  representation  of  consequences.  Perception,  as 
already  remarked,  does  not  involve  any  conception  of  a  unified  universe. 
It  is  quite  consistent  with  a  chaos.  It  does  not  require  for  its  action 
or  satisfaction  the  existence  of  any  relations  other  than  a  cause,  nor  any 
reciprocity  or  interaction  between  various  causes  or  objects  whose  ex- 
istence it  assumes  or  postulates,  no  matter  how  such  things  may  be 
actually  related.  It  simply  goes  beyond  the  individual  "  phenomena  " 
of  apprehension  for  their  causes  or  grounds  and  does  not  determine 
whether  they  are  interrelated  or  not,  or  whether  there  is  any  common 
basis  for  a  synthesis  of  different  qualities.  So  far  as  perception  is 
concerned  the  world  may  not  be  an  ordered  one  at  all,  but  only  a  chaos. 
But  conperception  begins  to  suggest  some  sort  of  unity,  even  if  it  is 
only  limited  to  a  synthesis  of  qualities  in  a  single  subject  and  leaves  all 
such  synthetic  objects,  if  they  are  plural,  as  unrelated  as  perception 
might  leave  them.     When  it  gives  a  unity  of  reality  for  a  multiple  of 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  1 43 

qualities  it  simplifies,  to  that  extent,  the  possibilities  of  the  world  of 
"  knowledge."  It  is  therefore  the  first  step  in  the  unification  of 
"knowledge"  which  has  to  be  carried  further  by  additional  processes 
to  complete  the  work. 

Apperception. 

What  I  have  called  apperception  introduces  still  greater  complica- 
tions into  the  synthesis  of  "  knowledge,"  in  that  it  is  superposed  upon 
the  two  previous  processes,  which  are  at  the  basis  of  intensive  judgments, 
as  apperception  is  at  the  basis  of  extensive  judgments.  The  term  is  not 
new,  nor  is  the  import  which  I  give  to  it  wholly  new.  It  has  not  had  the 
same  meaning,  however,  in  all  systems  of  philosophy.  It  had  one 
meaning  in  Kant,  another  in  Leibnitz,  and  still  another  in  Wundt  and 
others.  Without  taking  the  trouble  to  decide  whether  any  or  all  of 
them  are  correct,  or  to  decide  whether  the  use  of  it  in  the  present  work 
is  identical  with  any  of  them,  I  shall  simply  define  it  as  having  to  do 
with  the  assimilation  and  differentiation  of  "  experience,"  or  the  com- 
prehension of  specific  relations  of  likeness  and  differences,  if  relations 
these  can  be  called.  As  here  conceived  it  always  involves  comparison 
and  is  the  main  step  in  what  is  usually  conceived  to  be  intelligibility. 
But  I  shall  use  the  term  so  as  to  include  in  this  general  description  of 
its  significance  a  more  specific  recognition  of  the  principle  which  en- 
ables it  to  have  the  function  which  I  assign  to  it  as  a  mental  act, 
namely,  that  it  involves  the  application  of  a  category  and  is  a  form  of 
judgment.  This  category  is  what  I  have  defined  as  the  ontological 
principle,  the  use  of  the  ideas  of  identity  or  difference  to  determine  the 
"nature"  of  things.  A  peculiar  characteristic  of  it  is  that  it  may  be 
applied  without  any  accompaniment  of  perception  and  conperception, 
or  aetiological  principles,  or  it  may  be  superposed  upon  the  results  of 
those  processes  and  thus  be  subordinate  to  them  in  the  determination 
of  the  total  meaning  of  things.      Of  this  again. 

I  have  said  that  the  fundamental  characteristic  of  apperception  is 
that  it  involves  comparison.  There  must  be  at  least  two  objects  of  con- 
sciousness that  its  action  may  be  applied.  These  objects  may  be  mere 
"  phenomenal  experiences,"  unref erred  apprehensions,  if  we  like  to 
limit  "  knowledge"  to  such  facts,  or  they  may  be  percepts  and  conper- 
cepts,  if  we  wish  to  include  such  within  the  possibilities  of  "  knowl- 
edge" conceived  as  more  than  "  phenomenal"  syntheses.  It  should 
be  remembered,  however,  that  I  have  endeavored  to  interpret  percep- 
tion and  conperception  in  a  way  that  does  not  absolutely  require  us  to 
transcend  all  "phenomena"  in  our  cognitions,  though  the  language 


144  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

employed  is  intended  also  to  be  consistent  with  such  transcendency  in 
the  application  of  a:tiological  categories.  But  we  do  not  require  to 
consider  the  possibly  double  import  of  ontological  methods  as  defined, 
as  there  is  no  necessity  for  anything  more  than  a  comparison  and  dis- 
tinction of  **  phenomena"  to  satisfy  the  use  of  an  ontological  principle. 
Consequently  I  may  define  apperception  consistently  with  any  theory 
of  the  ultimate  nature  of  "  knowledge"  and  so  regard  it  as  the  appli. 
cation  of  the  categories  of  identity  and  difference  to  facts,  whether 
"  noumenal "  or  "phenomenal,"  for  the  determination  of  their 
"nature"  in  terms  of  their  likenesses  and  differences.  As  already  re- 
marked it  constitutes  the  nature  of  extensive  judgments  which  illustrate 
its  action,  and  first  represents  its  functions  in  the  formation  of  general 
concepts.  Memory  and  association  may  be  connected  with  the  process 
in  supplying  data  for  the  application  of  the  categories,  but  these  are 
not  absolutely  necessary.  All  that  they  do  is  to  enable  the  mind  to 
establish  some  sort  of  continuity  or  discontinuity  with  the  past,  while 
the  comparison  involving  identity  or  difference  between  objects  of  con- 
sciousness may  be  effected  entirely  within  the  limits  of  the  present 
contents  of  consciousness,  so  that  memory  and  association  only  increase 
the  range  of  "phenomena"  to  which  its  categories  are  applicable. 

It  is  not  the  fact  that  two  or  more  objects  are  before  consciousness 
that  constitutes  an  act  of  apperception,  but  the  fact  that  they  are  ob- 
served to  be  two  or  more  and  their  similarity  or  difference  remarked. 
The  apperception  does  not  take  place  until  the  plurality  and  similarity 
or  diversity  are  observed.  The  process  can  apply  to  a  single  object 
of  consciousness  only  when  a  diversity  of  qualities  is  observed  in 
connection  with  the  conperception  of  them  in  the  same  subject.  In 
all  other  cases  the  category  of  plurality  is  present  and  individual  objects 
are  distinguished  at  least  mathematically  and  may  be  either  identified 
or  distinguished  generically.  This  is  probably  self-evident  from  the 
analysis  made.  But  it  should  be  remarked  for  the  sake  of  complete- 
ness of  statement.  The  principles  which  determine  plurality  materi- 
ally are  time  and  space  which  I  have  recognized  as  the  principles  of 
both  continuity  and  individuation.  Sameness  of  time  and  space  are  the 
determinants  of  mathematical  identity  or  absolute  unity.  Differences 
of  time  and  space  are  the  determinants  of  plurality  or  separate  indi- 
vidualities, that  is,  mathematically  distinct  at  least,  and  usually  separate 
in  all  senses  affecting  independence  of  existence  and  center  of  refer- 
ence. Thus  two  objects  of  consciousness  may  be  so  absolutely  alike 
as  to  be  indistinguishable  in  all  but  their  individuality  of  space  or  time 
existence,  that  is,  so  much  alike  that,  if  not  seen  simultaneously  they 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  1 45 

might  be  assumed  to  be  one  and  the  same  thing.  But  the  mere  fact 
of  differences  of  time  or  space  is  sufficient  to  determine  the  plurality 
which  makes  comparison  and  distinction  as  individual  wholes  possible, 
provided  that  the  conditions  assure  us  of  the  plurality  in  cases  where 
the  objects  are  not  simultaneously  before  consciousness.  The  first  act 
will  be  the  observation  of  similarity  or  difference  between  plural  ob- 
jects. The  next  will  be  the  act  of  determining  the  genus  and  species 
in  the  case,  and  finally  when  a  species  or  genus  has  been  formed  the 
apperceptions  will  take  the  form  of  extensive  judgments  where  simi- 
larity will  determine  the  affirmative  and  diversity  the  negative  judg- 
ments. 

The  importance  of  the  process,  however,  is,  as  has  been  briefly  indi- 
cated, that  we  may  or  may  not  accept  the  aetiological  categories  in  the 
noumenal  sense  of  transphenomenal  reality  when  considering  the  act  of 
apperception.  We  may  be  satisfied  with  "phenomenal"  facts  and 
their  similarity  and  diversity,  and  so  treat  the  problem  of  "  knowledge" 
as  solved,  for  all  practical  purposes  at  least,  when  facts  have  been  sys- 
tematized and  the  uniformities  of  events  observed.  This  is  to  say  that 
the  ontological  categories  can  be  applied  to  classify  facts  without  cau- 
sally or  serologically  explaining  them,  and  can  serve  as  the  principle 
of  classification  and  systematization  where  things  are  not  wholly  chaotic 
or  irreducible  to  an  order  of  likeness  in  kind.  Universal  differences 
would  leave  us  without  any  use  for  the  principle  of  identity,  while  the 
existing  system  of  facts  offers  data  for  what  are  called  similarity  and 
difference  which  are  the  ontological  categories. 

Though  we  may  actually  apply  the  ontological  categories  to  phe- 
nomena without  using  the  serological  a  little  observation  will  show 
that  interpretation  and  explanation  are  not  complete  until  the  latter  are 
applied.  There  are  two  facts  which  indicate  this.  Firstly,  all  that 
the  principles  of  identity  and  difference  can  accomplish  is  the  reduction 
to  classes  or  exclusion  from  them.  Classification  only  indicates  that  a 
given  fact  belongs  to  a  genus  already  known.  When  a  new  fact  comes 
before  consciousness  the  mind  may  not  at  first  know  what  to  do  with 
it,  and  after  investigation  finds  that  it  belongs  to  a  known  genus.  This 
is  the  affirmation  of  its  inclusion  in  that  genus,  and  hence  the  affirmative 
judgment  of  extension.  If  excluded  the  judgment  is  negative.  The 
fact  is  supposed  to  be  made  intelligible  by  thus  classifying  it,  less  so  in 
the  negative  than  in  the  affirmative  judgment,  as  its  reduction  to  the 
known  remains  still  to  be  affected.  But  we  are  supposed  to  "  know'* 
a  thing  when  we  can  classify  it.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  we  do  not 
14  know  "  it  in  any  sense  that  it  is  fully  explained  when  it  is  thus  classi- 


146  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

fied,  but  we  only  discover  that  it  belongs  to  the  class  of  supposedly 
"  known  "  or  explained  facts.  This  means  that  the  principle  of  iden- 
tity only  discovers  that  a  new  fact  has  the  same  explanation  as  one 
previously  "  known,"  and  not  that  the  fact  is  ultimately  explained. 
Secondly,  extensive  judgments,  though  they  may  classify  facts  without 
special  reference  to  their  implications,  nevertheless  do  not  release  the 
mind  from  the  habit  or  necessity  of  thinking  of  them  as  related  aetio- 
logically  in  some  way.  If  in  forming  such  judgments,  we  assume 
that  the  facts  are  "phenomena,"  events,  attributes,  or  properties,  we 
have  a  conception  of  them  which  postulates  with  it  the  idea  of  cause 
or  ground.  Hence,  whether  the  terms  of  such  judgments  are  the 
names  of  events  or  qualities,  or  of  substantive  realities,  the  idea  of 
aetiological  principles  is  subsumed  in  the  case.  This  is  quite  apparent 
even  in  the  extensive  judgment  when  composed  of  substantive  terms. 
For  example,  "  Men  are  vertebrates,"  "  Horses  are  animals,"  "  Stones 
are  matter,"  etc.  Here  we  have  concepts  and  judgment  which  are  easily 
reducible  to  the  intensive  form  to  express  practically  the  same  facts  as 
the  extensive.  "Men,"  "  vertebrates,"  "  horses,"  etc.,  are  conceived 
as  subjects  of  attributes,  the  cause  or  grounds  of  a  given  group  of 
qualities,  so  that  the  etiological  postulates  are  implicated  in  even  the 
extensive  judgments,  and  serve  as  the  ultimate  means  of  making  facts 
"  intelligible."  They  are  the  point  where  explanation  stops.  All  that 
apperception  does  is  to  unify  explanation,  not  to  produce  it.  If  we  do 
not  "understand  "  the  predicate  of  an  extensive  judgment  the  subject 
will  not  be  "  understood."  The  value  of  the  judgment  is  that  it 
reduces  the  new  to  the  familiar,  to  the  presumably  "  intelligible,"  to 
what  is  already  "  known,"  and  hence  serves  especially  the  important 
object  of  the  communication  of  "  knowledge,"  not  the  primary  deter- 
mination of  it  in  its  explanatory  aspects.  The  aetiological  categories 
take  the  precedence  in  this  function.  The  ontological  principles  enable 
us  to  assign  a  simpler  order  of  things  than  the  aetiological.  They  give 
evidence  of  a  unified  system  of  facts  in  terms  of  similarity  and  diversity 
as  well  as  unity  and  plurality,  and  so  reduce  the  conditions  of  a  chaos 
to  a  minimum. 

Ratiocination. 
Ratiocination  is  the  general  process  of  inference.  I  intend  that 
it  shall  comprehend  the  fields  of  both  induction  and  deduction.  This 
fact  explains  the  scope  and  range  of  the  term  as  employed,  and  as  I  do 
not  in  any  way  limit  or  extend  the  accepted  usage  of  the  term  further 
definition  of  it  is  not  imperative.     What  the  process  is,  therefore,  is 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  H7 

sufficiently  well  known  not  to  require  definition  and  explanation  or  il- 
lustration at  length.  The  important  fact  for  consideration  here  is  the 
reason  for  classifying  the  process  under  the  general  head  of  judgment 
or  cognition.  It  has  been  usual  to  treat  the  process  as  if  it  were  an 
unique  one  and  different  in  nature  from  that  of  judgment.  This  may 
not  always  or  ever  be  intentional,  but  the  manner  of  treatment  as  well 
as  the  material  involved  is  calculated  at  least  to  suggest  the  general 
difference  between  judgment  and  reasoning.  But  I  think  it  simplifies 
the  problem  of  ' '  knowledge "  to  conceive  ratiocination  as  a  form  of 
judgment.  The  difference  between  them  is  apparent  in  the  relative 
complexities  of  the  syllogism,  but  it  is  only  apparent.  If  we  simply 
remark  the  fact  that  the  conclusion  of  the  syllogism  is  always  a  judg- 
ment, formed  from  the  major  and  minor  terms,  we  certainly  discover 
that  the  result  is  a  judgment  in  matter  and  we  may  well  ask  whether 
the  process  is  anything  more.  Now  if  we  further  observe  that  the  mid- 
dle term  represents  an  application  of  the  principle  of  identity  or  differ- 
ence and  that  the  mental  act  which  apprehends  the  relation  involved 
in  the  connection  between  the  major  and  minor  terms  on  the  basis  of 
the  middle  term  is  an  apperception,  we  can  readily  see  that  the  whole 
illative  process  is  a  judgment  in  its  essential  characteristics,  and  the 
distinction  between  it  and  ratiocination  is  in  the  equivocal  import  of 
the  terms,  now  used  to  denote  a  process  and  again  the  subject  matter 
to  which  it  is  applied.  Ratiocination  is  only  the  well  known  act  in 
more  complicated  conditions.  It  has  for  its  matter  propositions  in- 
stead of  mere  concepts,  though  we  might  well  call  propositions  un- 
named concepts  and  thus  indicate  another  evidence  that  the  reasoning 
process  is  only  a  judgment  or  cognition.  The  reason  that  it  has  seemed 
to  be  different  from  judgment  is  that  we  have  gotten  into  the  habit  of 
conceiving  and  defining  it  by  the  character  of  its  subject  matter  rather 
than  the  psychological  act  by  which  the  conclusion  is  obtained,  and  as 
the  problem  of  "knowledge"  is  at  present  discussed  we  require  to 
think  of  processes  instead  of  subject  matter. 

Though  ratiocination  is  here  conceived  as  apperception  it  is  im- 
portant to  remark  that  it  has  a  relation  to  time  and  space  which  apper- 
ception does  not  have.  Apperception  compares  the  terms  of  present 
syntheses  or  the  terms  of  the  past  and  present.  Memory  is  necessary 
for  the  apperception  of  the  present  in  reference  to  the  past :  it  is  not 
necessary  for  the  apperceptive  synthesis  of  the  present.  But  reasoning 
may  include  judgment  as  to  the  future  as  well  as  the  past.  It  is  there- 
fore or  may  be  prospective  in  its  conceptual  synthesis.  Mnemonic  ap- 
perception is  retrospective,  ratiocinative  apperception  may  be  pros- 


14S  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

pective,  possibly  must  be.    It  applies  to   data  not   actually  present  to 
consciousness,  although  founded  upon  the  present  data. 

Generalization. 
What  I  have  called  genero-perception  or  generalization  is  simply 
the  application  of  judgment,  under  ontological  categories,  to  the  time 
and  space  relations  of  present  cognitions,  that  is  perception,  conper- 
ceptions  and  apperceptions.  It  will  not  require  elaborate  explanation 
until  we  come  to  testing  the  validity  of  "knowledge."  I  remark  it 
here  only  because  it  may  not  be  apparent  in  the  definition  of  ratiocin- 
ation which  may  be  either  prospective  or  retrospective.  It  is  only  be- 
cause ratiocination  may  not  explicitly  generalize  its  conclusion  that 
the  application  of  the  judgment  so  formed  to  all  time  and  space  is 
concealed.  What  generalization  accomplishes  is  the  explicit  recogni- 
tion of  universality  in  judgment,  a  characteristic  which  is  determined 
by  the  use  of  the  principle  of  identity  or  difference,  in  fact  is  but  an 
embodiment  of  it.  Present  mental  states  are  all  that  are  required  for 
perception,  conperception,  and  apperception  and  their  products  need 
not  represent  more  than  the  present  facts,  even  though  it  is  possible  to 
bring  past  "experience"  into  relations  in  which  these  processes  may 
be  applied.  What  I  did  in  the  treatment  of  them  as  processes  was  to 
use  the  least  number  of  complications  in  illustrations  of  their  functions 
and  so  to  limit  the  elementary  factors  to  the  fewest  possible,  allowing 
the  admission  of  other  matter  as  the  wider  conditions  of  "  knowledge  " 
required.  Hence  it  has  been  necessary  to  distinguish  the  special  act 
of  universalizing  a  judgment  as  an  additional  act  to  that  of  simply 
forming  a  present  synthesis.  I  would  recognize  "universality  "  as  a 
category  were  it  not  that  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  special  application 
of  the  ontological  principles  as  defined. 

Objections  and  Explanations. 
The  first  objection  which  presents  itself  to  this  analysis  of  the  ele- 
mentary synthetic  processes  in  "  knowledge"  is  that  there  are  no  such 
simple  processes  in  normal  adult  experience  as  perception  and  conper- 
ception, as  I  have  defined  and  applied  them.  I  would  be  told,  by 
some  at  least,  that  the  actual  mode  of  acquiring  "knowledge"  is 
either  quite  different  from  what  I  have  indicated  or  that  it  is  much 
more  complex.  My  reply  to  this  objection  would  be  that  I  am  not 
pretending  to  assert  that  all  my  mental  habits  and  acts  represent  these 
functions  in  their  simplicity  in  normal  experience.  I  quite  fully  agree 
that  my  normal  mental  action  in  the  majority  of  my  experiences  may 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  1 49 

represent  very  much  more  complex  conditions  than  are  found  in  the 
individual  acts  defined.  But  the  critic  must  remember  that  I  may  ask 
the  question  on  this  admission,  whether  these  more  complex  processes 
give  any  "  knowledge"  It  is  one  thing  to  use  the  term  "  knowledge  " 
to  represent  the  acquisition  of  "  ideas,"  suppositions,  possible  objects 
of  experience,  and  another  to  obtain  facts  with  a  certitude  and  intelli- 
gibility that  are  usually  supposed  to  be  implied  in  "knowledge." 
What  our  usual  epistemologist  forgets  is  that  "  knowledge"  is  an  ex- 
tremely equivocal  term  and  that  in  the  looser  parlance  of  philosophic 
discussion  it  stands  for  the  acquisition  of  ideas,  not  their  certitude  and 
legitimacy  or  their  proof.  I  am  not  just  now  discussing  how  I  get 
*.*  ideas,"  nor  what  the  mental  processes  are  by  which  I  form  conjectures 
which  have  to  be  verified,  but  after  having  dealt  with  the  question  of 
origin  I  am  trying  now  to  explain  the  elementary  acts  by  which  my 
certain  and  unified  truths  are  obtained  in  the  last  analysis  when  any 
sceptical  question  is  raised  as  to  their  legitimacy.  The  whole  problem 
Is  first  to  determine  what  you  shall  mean  by  "  knowledge,"  and  then 
gauge  your  psychological  analysis  to  suit  that  definition.  I  agree 
readily  enough  that  if  "knowledge"  means  any  thought  or  idea  that 
happens  to  get  into  my  head,  there  are  some  far  more  complicated 
processes  involved  than  those  which  I  have  indicated  as  elementary 
.and  fundamental.  Memory  and  association,  conjecture,  inductive  in- 
ference and  deductive  reasoning,  whether  valid  or  not,  often  combine 
in  my  mature  experience  in  suggesting  what  my  mind  entertains,  but 
we  may  well  ask  whether  all  this  is  "knowledge."  It  is  such  if 
■"  knowledge  "  means  only  this  product.  But  in  all  rational  philosophi- 
cal discussion  "  knowledge"  must  have  either  a  more  definite  meaning 
or  a  recognition  of  the  separate  problems  implied  in  the  general  and 
abstract  conception  of  the  term  as  it  is  too  often  used  in  philosophy, 
if  there  is  to  be  any  sane  investigation  of  its  issues  at  all.  If,  for  in- 
stance, I  assume  that  "  knowledge  "  implies  certitude  in  regard  to  the 
object  matter  of  consciousness,  I  must  admit  that  the  majority  of  my 
mental  processes,  which  are  either  inductive  inferences  or  associated 
with  these,  never  give  it  to  me  at  all.  But  if  "  knowledge  "  is  only 
"  ideas,"  "  possibilities  of  experience,"  anything  might  give  it  to  me, 
association,  unverified  inference,  imagination,  or  even  dreams.  But  I 
am  not  concerned  with  any  such  conception  of  "  knowledge."  These 
are  processes  which  require  verification  and  on  that  account  take  a 
subordinate  place  to  those  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  regarding  as 
more  elementary  and  more  trustworthy.  Hence  when  we  wish  to  find 
what  it  is   in  the   complex  processes  of  normal  experience  that  de- 


15°  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

termines  the  certification  and  unification  demanded  in  the  term  "  knowl- 
edge," we  simply  eliminate  from  consideration  the  inferential  and  as- 
sociational  factors  and  take  those  which  are  uneliminable  and  which 
characterize  the  constitutional  nature  of  consciousness  as  a  source  of 
any  certitude  at  all,  and  regard  them  as  the  real  agencies  in  the  result. 
I  cannot  easily  pick  out  a  perception  or  conperception  in  ordinary  ex- 
perience without  finding  other  processes  associated  or  implicated  in 
them,  so  that  the  total  exercise  of  functions  in  normal  life  may  contain 
more  than  the  analysis  which  I  have  given  would  seem  to  indicate. 
But  this  complexity  does  not  exclude  the  presence  of  these  functions  as 
defined,  and  when  the  whole  process  has  been  analyzed  into  its  elements 
we  shall  find  all  of  them  there,  and  the  only  question  will  be  as  to 
which  of  them  delivers  and  guarantees  "knowledge,"  this  depending 
on  the  original  definition  of  our  problem. 

The  whole  actual  process  of  "  knowledge"  may  be  illustrated  in 
detail.  An  object  is  before  me.  All  that  I  am  immediately  aware  of 
is  a  certain  yellow  color.  If  it  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  seen  any 
object  at  all  and  I  have  only  the  apprehension  of  a  color  the  only  thing 
that  is  possible  for  judgment  is  expressed  in  the  limited  meaning 
which  I  have  given  the  term  perception.  But  by  the  time  that  the 
period  of  reflection  and  self-consciousness  has  arrived  so  much  has  al- 
ready been  done  in  the  way  of  maturing  the  combination  of  a  number 
of  processes  that  it  may  be  impossible  for  me  to  wholly  isolate  such  a 
simple  process  for  my  imagination.  Certainly  in  mature  experience 
I  am  not  likely  to  escape  the  influence  of  memory  and  association  in  the 
event  of  having  a  sensation  of  color  as  imagined.  Hence  in  such  an 
illustration  at  a  time  when  the  process  has  any  intelligibility  at  all  the 
apprehension  represents  an  occasion  which  suggests  something  besides 
a  cause  or  ground  of  the  color  sensation.  This,  however,  depends 
wholly  upon  the  condition  that  I  have  in  the  past  had  some  apprehen- 
sion besides  that  of  vision  or  color  in  connection  with  color.  Unless 
this  be  so  anything  whatever  might  be  suggested  by  the  present  ex- 
perience. But  the  supposition  that  any  other  sensation  has  been  asso- 
ciated with  the  present  one  in  the  past  is  an  admission  of  a  apper- 
ceptive synthesis  which  is  here  supposed  to  be  the  subject  of  scepticism, 
But  it  is  the  only  condition  that  any  single  apprehension  afterward 
shall  suggest  the  possible  association  of  another  quality  than  the  present 
one  apprehended.  However,  when  the  apprehension  of  the  yellow 
color  does  take  place  alone,  after  some  conperceptive  synthesis  in  the 
past,  the  process  instigated  by  memory  and  association  is  an  anticipa- 
tive  one.     It  is  an  inference  that  some  other  quality  is  present  in  the 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  15 l 

object  though  not  at  the  time  an  object  of  immediate  present  apprehen- 
sion. The  yellow  color  may  suggest  and  I  may  infer  that  the  object 
has  a  certain  taste  and  a  certain  internal  structure  with  which  past  ex- 
perience is  familiar.  The  combination  of  these  qualities  in  the  same 
object  is  what  I  have  in  the  past  considered  as  constituting,  say,  an 
"  orange."  Instead  of  depending  upon  visual  experience  in  the  case  to 
instigate  the  suggestion  it  may  be  taste  to  start  with  and  I  infer  the 
color.  Hence  in  actual  experience  in  adult  and  mature  life  what  I  find 
is  a  large  dependence  upon  inference  and  association  in  connection  with 
more  or  less  isolated  apprehensions  and  not  a  perpetual  conperceptive 
synthesis  of  the  qualities  which  are  the  object  of  consciousness  at  the 
time.  That  is  to  say,  in  normal  life  I  do  not  all  the  time  find  either 
an  isolated  apprehension,  an  isolated  perception,  a  perfect  and  com- 
plete conperception,  all  in  the  order  in  which  the  analysis  above  given 
presents  them,  but  I  find  a  process  which  can  be  more  aptly  defined 
and  described  as  one  of  infero-apprehension,  a  combination  of  appre- 
hension and  inference.  The  stream  of  consciousness  is  scarcely  any- 
thing else.  Inference,  and  inductive  inference  at  that,  is  by  far  the 
most  frequent  condition  of  my  thought  at  any  moment  of  the  reflective 
or  unreflective  mental  life.  But  when  we  come  to  test  whether  this 
inferential  act  is  valid  or  not  we  have  to  test  its  accuracy  by  the  appro- 
priate "  experience"  or  apprehension.  If  on  the  apprehension  of  the 
particular  yellow  color  I  infer  the  taste  and  internal  structure  which  I 
have  in  the  past  associated  with  that  particular  color  I  can  verify  it  only 
by  opening  the  object  and  tasting  it.  But  I  cannot  verify  this  without 
a  conperceptive  synthesis.  I  must  be  convinced  that  the  taste  and  in- 
ternal structure  belong  to  the  same  object  as  the  color,  and  the  condi- 
tion of  this  result  is  the  unity  of  time  and  space  as  above  described. 
If  this  condition  is  not  satisfied  I  have  no  evidence  whatever  that  all 
the  qualities  belong  to  the  same  object.  Hence  some  degree  of  con- 
perception  is  absolutely  necessary  to  any  synthesis  at  all  in  "  experi- 
ence." It  must  take  place  some  time  in  order  to  make  the  inference 
to  it  at  any  time  possible  and  rational.  The  synthesis  may  not  always 
be  the  same.  Now  color  and  taste  may  be  associated,  and  again  color 
and  tactual  qualities,  and  still  again  tactual  and  savory  qualities,  or 
again  all  three  of  them.  When  once  the  conviction  has  been  formed 
by  various  conperceptive  syntheses  that  any  number  of  qualities  are 
associated  in  the  object  I  can  infer  all  of  them  on  the  occasion  of  a 
single  apprehension.  This  then  is  the  usual  process  of  "  knowledge." 
It  shows  infero-apprehension  as  the  normal  function  of  the  stream  of 
consciousness.     But  in  spite  of  all,  the  conperceptive  process  at  some 


IS2  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

past  time  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  production  of  this  infero-ap- 
prehension  and  as  necessary  to  its  verification  in  the  future.  Now  if 
conperception  be  thus  justified  as  an  elementary  condition  of  *'  knowl- 
edge," which  is  defined  as  synthetic  certitude,  it  is  only  a  question  of 
further  analysis  to  determine  whether  there  is  any  such  process  as  sim- 
ple perception  in  the  definition  of  it  adopted.  Now  as  conperception 
^assumes,  postulates,  cognizes  or  implicates  the  same  cause  or  ground 
for  all  the  qualities  simultaneously  apprehended,  there  is  no  escape 
from  the  supposition  that  a  single  apprehension  demands  the  same 
categorical  explanation.  "  Cause  "  or  "  ground  "  is  not  another  quality. 
Both  perception  and  conperception  are  on  the  same  plain  and  are  to  be 
explained,  not  one  by  the  other,  but  both  by  the  same  other  than  them- 
selves. Hence  perception  is  but  a  name  for  the  explanatory  judgment 
of  the  mind  on  the  occasion  of  a  single  apprehension  and  hence  for 
one  of  the  double  functions  involved  in  an  infero-apprehension,  which 
has  the  ratiocinative  act  of  expectation  or  anticipation  of  "experi- 
ence "  and  the  explanatory  function  of  reference  to  cause  or  ground,  as 
well  as  a  retrospective  function  of  memory  and  association.  But  the 
perception  is  there  as  an  element  of  the  totality  and  must  be  regarded 
as  the  simplest  form  of  the  cognitive  consciousness  in  the  application 
of  a  category.  This  has  all  to  be  determined  by  analysis  and  not  by 
an  actual  memory  of  the  original  "  experiences  "  with  which  "  knowl- 
edge "  began.  The  description  of  the  infant  consciousness  cannot 
be  made  from  memory  and  whether  in  self  or  others  has  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  analysis  of  the  adult  consciousness. 

Accepting,  therefore,  the  supposition  that  analysis  is  a  legitimate 
method  for  determining  the  fundamental  and  elementary  processes  of 
4 '  knowledge  "  I  shall  merely  call  attention  to  the  motive  which  has 
governed  it.  It  was  that  I  wished  to  show  first  that  judgment  was  the 
one  process  to  which  all  higher  mental  action  of  the  intellectual  type 
is  reducible  and  secondly  that  this  involves  the  application  of  a  cat- 
egory constituting  the  act  synthetic.  Assuming,  then,  that  judgment 
represents  the  one  general  type  of  mental  action  beyond  the  sensory, 
mnemonic  and  internal  mental  states,  it  may  be  noted  that  this  is  only 
a  simplification  of  Kant's  analysis.  I  have  only  reduced  the  processes 
beyond  sensibility  in  his  system  to  this  one  act  of  judgment.  I  think 
it  was  in  fact  the  conception  of  Kant,  but  it  was  not  expressly  and  ex- 
plicitly indicated  and  was  concealed  by  the  vast  machinery  of  distinc- 
tions between  the  functions  of  understanding  (Verstand)  and  reason 
( Vernunft) .  If  I  may  express  the  distinction  apparently  latent  in  the 
mind  of  Kant  the  whole  process  in  his  problem  would  be  found  in 


CONDITIONS   OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  1 53 

receptivity  and  activity,  as  characterizing  the  two  general  functions 
of  "  knowledge."  But  as  this  way  of  indicating  the  process  is  too 
closely  associated  with  the  metaphysics  of  Leibnitz  and  the  mechanical 
philosophy  of  the  anti-Leibnitzians,  and  as  all  mental  action,  sensory 
and  intellectual,  must  in  the  last  analysis  be  treated  as  activity,  I  think 
intuition  and  cognition  are  more  suggestive  of  the  conceptions  which 
we  have  to  take  of  the  two  processes,  covering  the  primary  and  the 
synthetic  functions  of  consciousness.  I  have,  of  course,  to  free  the  idea 
of  "  intuition  "  from  many  historical  associations  and  limit  its  import  to 
any  immediate  apprehension  of  consciousness,  but  that  is  only  a  matter 
of  definition,  while  cognition  easily  suggests  synthesis,  so  that  the  re- 
ceptivity and  activity  of  Kant  with  their  metaphysical  associations  in 
materialism  and  idealism  may  be  avoided.  I  am  not  presenting  a 
theory  of  "  knowledge  "  with  the  assumption  that  it  decides,  without 
specific  definition,  any  metaphysical  doctrine,  but  one  that  shall  be 
true,  if  true  at  all,  for  either  the  phenomenalist  or  the  transphenome- 
nalist.  All  questions  of  the  metaphysical  nature  meaning -ami  implica- 
tions other  than  phenomena  must  be  settled  independently  of  the  syn- 
thetic functions  ascribed  to  them  here.  I  am  aiming  only  to  simplify 
the  mental  acts  involved  in  the  ultimate  or  elementary  process  of 
44  knowledge  "  and  so  to  show  how  the  evolution  of  percepts  and  con- 
cepts and  their  synthesis  in  judgment  takes  place,  with  the  elements  or 
contents  that  constitute  them.  In  effecting  this  result  the  question  is 
not  what  my  present  developed  and  complex  mental  states  are  but  what 
their  elements  are,  as  determinable  by  analysis  and  the  elimination  of 
the  purely  associative  factors.  We  may  thus  show  how  the  mind  pro- 
ceeds from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite,  or  from  the  simple  to  the  com- 
plex, in  its  "  knowledge"  of  the  various  adjunctive  and  synthetic  ele- 
ments in  a  present  mature  state.  Hence  I  have  endeavored  only  to 
indicate  that  the  first  and  simplest  step  in  synthetic  44  knowledge"  is 
the  application  of  causality  or  ground  in  general  to  the  44  phenomena" 
of  "  experience,"  without  any  necessary  attempt  to  assign  that  cause 
or  ground  definite  characteristics  other  than  the  one  that  it  assumes  to 
explain.  This  may  mean  that  what  we  primarily  as  well  as  ultimately 
44  know  "  of  reality  is  what  it  does  and  nothing  more.  I  have  no  ob- 
jections to  this  conclusion  and  expect  to  take  it  up  again,  but  it  is  no 
part  of  the  system  at  present  to  either  assume  or  defend  such  a  con- 
clusion. I  am  concerned  only  with  the  systematic  application  of  the 
categories  as  explained  in  the  reduction  of  judgments  to  intensive  and 
extensive  types  and  their  regulation  by  the  aetiological  and  ontological 
categories  in  the  determination  of  their  material  contents.     This  sim- 


154  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

plification  of  the  problem  prepares  the  way  for  a  simpler  solution 
of  it. 

But  in  thus  conceiving  the  problem  to  have  been  reduced  to  the 
functions  of  intensive  and  extensive  judgments  it  is  easy  to  lose  sight 
of  an  important  consideration,  because  the  actual  order  of  thought  in 
the  expression  and  statement  of  its  original  results  seems  to  indicate 
that  the  order  of  genesis  is  the  same  as  that  of  statement.  But  this  is 
not  the  case  and  it  is  important  to  remark  it  and  to  keep  it  in  mind. 
In  explaining  the  nature  of  the  intensive  judgment  we  must  remember 
that  the  order  of  expression  is  not  an  indication  of  the  chronological 
order  of  genesis.  The  synthetic  act  of  judgment  does  not  imply  that 
we  ' '  know  "  the  subject  first  and  the  predicate  afterward  and  that  by 
some  hocus  pocus  process  we  get  them  together.  The  very  condition 
f  their  unity  in  time  and  space  excludes  this,  though  there  are  judg- 
ments in  which  the  synthesis  is  subsequent  to  the  independent  "  knowl- 
edge "  of  the  data  that  serve  as  subject  and  predicate  when  connected. 
But  the  important  fact  is  that  in  all  primary  and  elementary  u  knowl- 
edge," the  order  of  acquisition  is  predicate  and  then  subject.  The 
actual  dependence  of  effect  or  quality  upon  cause  or  ground  gives  the 
impression  that  the  order  of  expression  is  the  order  of  acquisition. 
But  the  form  of  logical  expression  happens  to  recognize  the  ordo 
natures  of  the  relation  between  subject  and  predicate  while  the  ordo 
cognitionis  is  the  reverse  and  represents  the  order  of  genesis  in 
"knowledge  "  as  predicate  first  and  then  the  subject  which  is  a  reflex 
of  the  application  of  a  category  to  the  given  datum.  This  is  only  to 
say  that  the  chronology  of  nat;  e  may  be  the  reverse  of  the  chronology 
of  mind  in  "knowing"  nature,  or  that  the  ordo  naturce  is  the 
reverse  of  the  ordo  cognitionis.  Simply  expressed,  therefore,  we 
have  an  "experience,"  a  "phenomenon"  of  consciousness,  an  ap- 
prehension as  the  datum  from  which  judgment  proceeds.  For  all  that 
the  theory  of  ' '  knowledge  "  may  care  or  know  there  may  be  a  stage  or 
period  of  development  in  the  life  of  the  infant  when  it  exercises  no 
function  of  cognition  or  judgment  as  synthetically  exercised  in  mature 
life.  But  whether  this  be  true  or  not,  there  is  certainly  a  point  where 
the  mind  regards  a  fact  as  relative,  "phenomenal,"  or  in  some  way 
explicable  by  something  not  itself,  and  from  that  point  on  in  the  life  of 
the  individual  the  mind  insists  on  referring  this  fact  to  its  ground  or 
cause.  The  fact  or  phenomenon  of  experience  represents  the  predi- 
cate and  the  subject  is  the  reflex  of  the  aetiological  category,  and  hence 
the  order  of  "  knowledge"  is  predicate  and  then  subject.  This  rela- 
tion of  the  ordo  cognitionis  to  the  ordo  naturce  will  be  a  matter  of 


CONDITIONS   OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  155 


consideration  again  when  a  further  objection  to  the  above  analysis  of 
the  process  of  ' '  knowledge  "  is  the  subject  of  attention,  as  it  affects 
certain  questions  which  have  not  been  considered. 

We  may  apply  the  same  observations  to  the  extensive  judgment 
with  some  qualifications.  A  condition  of  its  formation,  when  the  two 
terms  are  non-coordinate  species  apperceived  as  alike,  is  that  the  predi- 
cate should  represent  an  object  or  class  already  known  and  the  subject 
then  becomes  a  later  object  of  consciousness  both  as  to  fact  of  its  ex- 
istence and  its  relation  to  the  predicate.  This  makes  the  subject  known 
last,  as  in  the  intensive  judgment,  though  the  order  of  inclusion  logi- 
cally is  the  reverse  of  the  intensive.  But  in  the  primary  apperceptive 
judgment,  involved  in  the  elementary  formation  of  general  concepts,  the 
two  or  more  objects  of  consciousness  may  be  simultaneous  and  the 
similarity  or  difference  between  them  makes  them  to  appear  to 
contemporaneously  ' '  known  "  with  the  real  or  supposed  genus  of  which 
they  are  coordinate  species.  But  in  all  apperceptive  judgments  in- 
volving a  comparison  with  the  past,  the  most  natural  order  is  genus  first 
and  species  last,  a  fact  which  makes  the  subject  last  and  the  predicate 
first  in  the  order  of  "  knowledge."  The  possibility,  however,  of  main- 
taining that  in  all  judgments  whatever,  unless  we  except  the  first  forma- 
tion of  a  genus,  the  subject  is  "  known  "  later  than  the  predicate  is  not 
an  important  one  to  insist  upon  in  extensive  judgments,  because  of 
their  final  reduction  to  the  intensive  as  the  primary  one  in  the  order  of 
"  knowledge."  This  is  incontestable  in  all  extensive  judgments  which 
represent  subject  and  predicate  as  things  or  realities  having  attributes. 
The  formation  of  the  very  elements  ■'l  the  extensive  judgment  thus 
involves  the  primary  application  of  the  intensive,  making  the  category 
of  causality  or  ground  prior  to  all  others  and  the  ultimate  source  of 
mental  satisfaction  in  the  explanation  of  facts.  The  aetiological  syn- 
thesis thus  precedes  the  ontological  in  all  cases  where  subject  and  pre- 
dicate represent  substantive  concepts.  It  is  tacitly  implied  in  merely 
attributive  concepts,  for  these  conceived  as  "  phenomenal  "  facts  imply 
the  aetiological  categories  even  when  they  are  not  expressed,  so  that  in 
all  cases  the  intensive  judgment  is  prior  in  its  functional  importance, 
or  at  least  more  fundamental  than  the  extensive,  which  does  not  con- 
stitute the  whole  of  the  act  of ' '  knowledge."  In  the  intensive  judgment 
the  subject  is  necessarily  posterior  to  the  predicate  in  '*  knowledge,"  and 
whatever  real  or  apparent  exceptions  to  this  law  appear  in  certain  forms 
of  the  extensive  or  apperceptive  judgment  the  intensive  represents  the 
ultimate  process  of  "  knowledge  "  when  it  seeks  more  than  the  mere 
apprehension  and  association  of  facts  as  phenomena. 


156  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  statements  made  about  the  ordo  cognitionis  in  the  problem  of 
"  knowledge "  suggest  an  objection  to  the  analysis  of  it  which  the 
treatment  of  intensive  and  extensive  judgments  may  assume.  I  pre- 
viously called  attention  to  a  mode  of  interpreting  the  relation  between 
the  subject  and  predicate  in  certain  apparent  intensive  judgments 
which  seemed  to  imply  an  identity  of  meaning  between  the  two.  The 
illustration  chosen  was  the  proposition  "  Snow  is  white,"  in  which  it 
was  remarked  that,  as  the  order  of  acquiring  my  conceptions  was  that 
of  "white"  first  and  "snow"  last,  it  came  about  that  the  subject 
in  fact  had  no  other  meaning  than  the  particular  "  white"  which  the 
predicate  represented.  This  meant,  practically  at  least,  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  identity  might  represent  the  content  of  such  judgments  and 
serological  categories  were  excluded  from  their  interpretation.  This 
view,  however,  rests  upon  a  conception  of  "  knowledge "  which  I 
have  not  noticed  and  which  does  not  involve  the  application  of  judg- 
ment to  it  as  I  have  explained  it.  It  assumes  that  the  mode  of  forming 
judgments  as  they  are  expressed  in  language  can  have  little  or  nothing 
to  do  with  the  process  of  "  knowledge  "  and  that  we  have  to  look  else- 
where to  find  the  true  genesis  of  it.  In  other  words  it  would  limit 
' '  knowledge  "  to  apprehensions  and  exclude  all  synthetic  functions  from 
it,  while  it  would  rob  us  of  the  right  to  think  of  subjects  of  any  kind. 

There  is  a  division  of  "knowledge"  into  fresentative  and  repre- 
sentative by  which  is  meant  the  distinction  between  actually  present 
"phenomena"  and  past  "phenomena"  represented  in  memory  and 
imagination,  Hume's  distinction  between  "impressions"  and  their 
"  copies."  The  distinction  is  an  important  one  and  involves  a  true 
conception  of  the  elements  constituting  the  "  stream  of  consciousness." 
If  "knowing"  or  "knowledge  "  expresses  nothing  more  than  "hav- 
ing ideas  "  directly  before  consciousness  as  presentations  or  represen- 
tations mere  facts  of  "experience,"  an  everflowing  series  of  events, 
and  judgment  only  a  mode  of  explaining  the  meaning  of  words  which 
shall  variously  apply  to  either  individual  or  to  collective  groups  of 
these  facts,  then  the  problem  seems  to  have  another  interpretation  of 
its  nature. 

Now  it  is  true  enough  that  every  term  calls  up  certain  "  represen- 
tative" qualities,  or  perhaps  one  quality,  which  stands  for  the  object. 
We  call  this  or  them  its  "  essential  "  property  or  properties.  But 
usually  some  one  quality  is  the  properly  "  representative  "  one,  as  the 
pictured  fact  by  which  the  mind  "thinks"  what  a  term  or  thing 
means.  Other  qualities  may  be  implied  by  the  term,  but  are  not 
"represented  "  in  consciousness  unless  a  special  reason  makes  it  neces- 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  157 


sary  to  do  so.  They  are  always  possibly  "  representable,"  and  have 
come  to  be  associated  with  the  term  by  the  various  coexistences  and 
sequences  of  "  experience,"  so  that  whatever  syntheses  we  have  are 
supposedly  the  "  phenomenal  "  syntheses  under  the  categories  of  rela- 
tion, coexistence  and  sequence.  In  the  use  of  any  term,  therefore,  a  cer- 
tain quality,  present  or  represented  in  imagination,  is  before  conscious- 
ness as  its  equivalent  and  if  others  are  implied  or  asserted  of  the  same 
object  it  is  as  a  synthetic  associate  of  the  "representative"  instance. 
The  judgment  would  mean  connection  between  the  two  or  more  quali- 
ties which  have  become  associated  in  "experience,"  while  there  is 
identity  between  subject  and  predicate  in  so  far  as  the  ' '  representa- 
tive "  fact  is  concerned  and  the  others  correspond  to  Kant's  synthetic 
function.  A  judgment  will  appear  analytic  when  the  subject  implies 
the  predicate  idea  for  which  the  term  stands,  and  synthetic  when  other 
qualities,  not  "  representative"  are  associated  with  it.  Such  things  as 
"categories"  implying  something  other  than  the  presentative  or  rep- 
resentative facts  of  consciousness  are  supposed  to  be  unnecessary  in 
determining  the  meaning  of  propositions  or  in  expressing  the  content 
of  "  thought." 

The  strength  of  this  general  objection  against  the  analysis  of  judg- 
ment as  I  have  presented  it  is  in  the  actual  amount  of  truth  which  it 
involves.  One  of  the  fundamental  meanings  of  the  term  "  knowledge  " 
which  I  have  recognized  as  important  to  keep  in  mind  when  discuss- 
ing its  problems  is  that  which  represents  it  as  expressing  what  I  cer- 
tainly "know,"  what  I  "have  in  consciousness,"  and  this  makes  it 
convertible  with  apprehension,  "  experience,"  or  immediate  conscious- 
ness, and  does  not  imply  synthetic  activity  or  interpretation.  In  this 
way  "representative"  phenomena  of  consciousness  become  "knowl- 
edge" as  well  as  presentative,  simply  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that,  in 
spite  of  the  absence  of  "  reality"  such  as  the  presentative  conscious- 
ness is  supposed  to  possess  or  indicate,  the  actual  picture  of  past  or 
possible  "experience"  is  a  certain  fact,  "  ideal"  though  it  be.  Now 
passing  from  the  representation  that  the  "  stream  of  consciousness  "  is 
a  series  of  presentative  and  "representative"  states  to  the  characteri- 
zation of  "knowledge"  also  as  the  various  forms  of  synthesis  applied 
to  the  elements  of  this  "  stream,"  we  have  undoubtedly  a  conception 
which  shows  what  the  mind  must  "  think  "  of  when  it  is  asked  -what 
it  "  knows."  The  description  and  definition  of  its  "  knowledge  "  will 
always  be  in  terms  of  the  presentative  and  representative  states,  whether 
as  individual  events  or  collective  groups  of  them.  What  it  "  knows" 
as  communicable  content  is  undoubtedly  the  sensible  fact  or  "  repre- 


158  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sentative,"  and  whenever  we  have  to  make  ourselves  intelligible  to 
queries  in  regard  to  our  "knowledge"  we  have  to  refer  to  this  con- 
tent as  its  meaning. 

But  all  this  description  of  the  process,  true  as  it  is  for  the  social 
function  of  the  communication  of  ideas,  is  wholly  irrelevant  to  the 
problem  of  what  consciousness  actually  does  in  its  "thinking"  and 
explanatory  functions.  What  we  constantly  forget  in  the  attempt  to 
solve  the  problem  of  "  knowledge"  is  the  distinction  between  the  con- 
dition for  communicating  ideas,  for  making  ourselves  intelligible  to 
others  in  terms  of  their  "experience,"  and  the  incommunicable  facts 
of  consciousness  which  are  indicated  in  the  various  ways  in  which  we 
relate  "empirical"  or  sensible  and  "representative"  data.  No  mat- 
ter what  the  "  stream  of  consciousness"  maybe,  or  what  the  syntheses 
of  association  may  be,  or  what  the  "  representative"  identity  between 
subject  and  predicate  may  be  in  the  analytic  aspect  of  certain  judg- 
ments, nevertheless  there  is  no  more  escape  from  the  "  noumenal  "  im- 
port of  some  terms  than  there  is  from  the  "phenomenal"  import  of 
others  which  actually  imply  the  "  noumenal."  We  cannot  appeal  to 
adjectival  concepts  as  exhausting  the  field  of  what  we  "  think  "  or  con- 
ceive, because  all  terms  assumed  to  express  or  imply  "phenomenal  " 
facts,  events,  attributes,  qualities,  properties,  etc.,  carry  with  them 
the  correlated  implicate  which  the  objection  under  consideration  tries 
to  eliminate  from  "  knowledge,"  and  which  can  be  eliminated  only  by 
limiting  the  definition  of  "  knowledge  "  to  what  we  have  presentatively 
and  representatively  as  sensible  or  mnemonic  content  before  conscious- 
ness. But  in  addition  to  the  implication  of  all  terms  naming  "  phe- 
nomena" or  attributive  facts,  there  are  also  all  substantive  terms, 
which,  in  spite  of  the  "representative"  concept  or  idea  indicating 
their  predicate  meaning,  are  as  much  entitled  to  the  recognition  of  their 
transphenomenal  import  as  any  terms  have  to  their  "  phenomenal  " 
implications.  Now  it  is  precisely  this  which  the  categories  indicate 
and  they  apply  to  these  implicates  whether  further  investigation  results 
in  characterizing  them  as  equally  relative  or  not.  The  main  point  is 
that  consciousness  is  not  satisfied  with  the  mere  apprehension  of  events 
and  as  long  as  it  regards  them  as  events  it  must  recognize  the  implica- 
tion of  this  conception,  which  even  the  associational  school  must  do  in 
its  search  for  the  antecedents  and  consequents  of  the  facts  which  it 
accepts  as  the  present  data  of  "knowledge."  On  any  theory  of  de- 
finitive and  communicable  "  knowledge,"  the  postulates  of  reflective 
and  explanatory  thought  are  actually  involved  in  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness and  the  conceptions  which  it  forms  of  facts.     We  may  claim 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  159 

that  such  implicates  and  conceptions  are  practically  useless,  that  they 
are  not  necessary  in  the  regulation  of  actual  conduct,  that  their  exis- 
tence cannot  be  "  proved,"  etc.  The  sceptic  may  worry  us  to  convince 
him  of  their  validity  by  asking  for  tangible  "  proof,"  or  to  explain  what 
they  are.  But  all  real  or  imaginary  difficulties  of  this  kind  do  not  affect 
the  question  of  fact  as  to  the  existence  of  these  ideas  in  consciousness 
and  their  actual  implication  in  the  very  conception  of  the  terms  of 
judgment.  We  may  treat  them  as  pseud  ideas  if  we  like,  but  they  are 
there  as  much  as  any  other  ideas  and  even  result  from  the  purely  rela- 
tive import  of  the  phenomenalist's  own  description  of  things.  I  have 
no  objections  to  admitting  that  they  cannot  be  "proved,"  as  this  al- 
ways involves  an  application  of  the  principle  of  identity,  while  caus- 
ality or  ground  is  not  ontological  but  aetiological  in  its  nature  and  repre- 
sents, in  some  form,  an  antithesis  or  difference  between  "  phenomena" 
or  events  and  their  causal  ground.  Definition  and  "  proof"  of  what 
a  fact  or  event  or  thing  is  depends,  first,  upon  the  communicability  of 
the  conception  which  will  convince  others  and  that  is  sensible  repre- 
sentation or  "experience,"  and  secondly,  upon  the  use  of  extensive 
judgments  and  these  involve  the  application  of  the  principle  of  identity 
or  difference  and  not  the  aetiological  categories.  The  latter  only  ex- 
plain, they  do  not  prove.  To  put  the  matter  in  another  way,  although 
the  meaning  of  subject  terms  is  expressed  by  the  predicate  ideas  which 
are  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  them,  this  fact  does  not  in  any  way  identify 
the  total  import  of  the  subject  terms  with  the  predicate,  but  is  only  a 
way  of  saying  what  the  subject  implies  as  to  facts,  while  the  presented 
facts  of  "experience"  equally  imply  a  subject  idea.  The  fact  that 
consciousness  returns  to  a  predicate  idea  to  explain  the  phenomenal 
import  of  a  subject  does  not  eliminate  the  subject  idea,  nor  contradict 
the  opposite  movement  of  thought  in  referring  a  present  or  represented 
event  to  a  ground.  The  implication  is  applicable  either  way,  so  that 
the  assumed  identity  of  meaning  between  subject  and  predicate  in  the 
intensive  judgment  is  only  apparent  and  applies  only  to  what  may  be 
called  conceptual  representation  and  not  to  the  total  import  of  the  two 
terms,  one  of  them  directly  standing  for  the  subject  idea  and  the  other 
for  the  attribute  idea,  the  two  being  correlated  and  mutually  implica- 
tive. Whether  we  need  substantive,  noumenal,  or  transphenomenal 
concepts  for  practical  life  is  not  the  question,  but  whether  they  exist 
and  whether  they  represent  and  satisfy  certain  intellectual  tendencies 
and  instincts  quite  as  ineradicable  as  any  philosophy  that  talks  glibly 
about  the  limitations  of  "  knowledge"  to  phenomena,  a  view  admis- 
sible enough  when  "knowledge"  means  nothing  more  than  having 


160  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sensible  states  as  occurrences.  But  if  intelligibility  and  explicability  in 
terms  of  causality  and  ground  are  equally  facts  of  consciousness  their 
admission  as  a  part  of  "  knowledge"  is  unavoidable  whether  they  have 
any  utility  or  not.  This  is  reinforced  by  the  fact  that  any  attempt  to 
explain  the  intensive  judgment  as  expressing  nothing  more  than  an 
associative  synthesis  of  phenomena  cannot  stand  an  application  to  the 
concrete  case  or  illustration.  For  example,  the  judgment  "Oranges 
are  yellow "  does  not  seem  intelligible  under  the  explanation  that  it 
means  to  affirm  that  the  facts  A,  B,  and  C  are  D,  or  that  the  group 
of  facts  ABC  are  D.  The  fact  is  that  the  copula  expresses  either 
identity  of  some  kind  or  a  relation  of  inhesion  or  non-inhesion.  The 
form  of  statement  has  no  rational  meaning  unless  this  be  the  conception 
of  it.  The  fact  of  coexistent  synthesis  is  also  there,  as  a  condition  of 
apprehending  any  other  relation,  but  this  fact  does  not  force  me  to 
limit  the  meaning  of  the  judgment  to  the  mere  category  of  space  or 
time  relations.  The  other  is  there  as  a  part  of  the  intellectual  inter- 
pretation of  what  the  facts  imply  as  well  as  associative  synthesis,  and 
the  question  of  utility  must  be  settled  afterward,  if  it  be  present  at  all. 
This  is  evident  in  the  actual  thinking  of  the  physical  sciences  which 
always  interprets  its  facts  and  "  phenomena  "  as  modes  or  attributes  of 
substantive  realities  without  regard  to  questions  of  associational  theories. 
It  was  not  in  "  metaphysics"  that  this  intellectual  habit  began,  but  it 
lay  at  the  very  basis  of  all  physical  science  as  a  part  of  what  was 
assumed  to  be  necessary  for  satisfactory  explanation.  This  necessity 
was  for  a  nucleus  or  center  of  reference  to  make  all  change  intelligible 
and  to  escape  the  supposition  that  things  have  come  from  nothing. 
The  philosopher  will  accept  almost  any  supersensible  fact  rather  than 
abandon  the  maxim  of  ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit. 

But  the  force  of  the  skeptic's  and  phenomenalist's  position  and 
the  limitation  of  "  knowledge  "  show  themselves  best  when  we  ask  what 
this  ' '  cause  "  or  "  ground  "  is,  which  persists  in  asserting  its  legitimacy. 
It  is  the  old  problem  of  telling  what  anything  is.  In  such  a  proposi- 
tion as  "  Snow  is  white"  it  is  not  always  assumed  that  we  are  telling 
what  "  snow"  &,  but  only  telling  the  fact  that  it  has  the  property  of 
whiteness,  and  as  the  whiteness  is  "  representatively"  and  "  experien- 
tially  "  the  same  as  "  snow  "  the  query  to  know  what  more  it  can  mean, 
if  it  is  not  absolutely  identical  with  the  predicate,  is  quite  natural.  That 
is,  we  may  naturally  enough  ask  what  snow  is  if  it  is  not  convertible 
with  the  "  experience  "  which  is  certainly  the  prius  of  all  that  the  term 
is  supposed  to  indicate.  To  assert  or  assume  that  the  "  snow  "  is  the 
cause  or  ground  of  the  "  whiteness  "  is  at  once  to  assert  more  than  the 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  161 

given  "  experience"  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of 
more  than  a  "phenomenal"  fact.  If  the  sceptic  thinks  that  he 
"knows"  nothing  more  than  this  phenomenal  fact  he  asks  that  we 
give  some  account  of  the  assumed  reality  that  claims  to  be  more  than 
the  "experience."  What  is  a  cause  or  ground,  if  it  is  not  a  mere 
illusion  ? 

Now  when  the  sceptic  asks  the  question  "  What  is  a  thing?  "  there 
is  implied  in  this  question  that  if  we  cannot  tell  him  "  what  it  is,"  or 
convince  him  in  terms  of  his  own  "  experience"  what  the  asserted  or 
assumed  "  reality  "  is,  we  have  no  right  to  believe  in  it.  The  inability 
to  answer  the  query  to  the  sceptic's  satisfaction  is  construed  as  tanta- 
mount to  a  confession  of  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  person  questioned. 
But  the  fact  is  that  the  sceptic's  question  cannot  be  rationally  answered 
until  we  know  what  it  means  or  in  reality  asks  for.  It  is  an  equivo- 
cal interrogation.  It  appears  to  ask  for  simple  information  which  can 
be  supplied  by  stating  a  matter  of  fact,  but  it  really  carries  with  its 
apparent  demand  for  information  an  assertion  that,  unless  proof  of 
what  is  assumed  in  the  idea  of  cause  or  ground  is  forthcoming,  its  truth 
is  not  credible.  That  is,  behind  the  sceptic's  question  is  an  assumption 
quite  as  much  needing  support  as  any  that  he  means  to  doubt.  He 
neither  recognizes  the  equivocal  nature  of  his  query  nor  frankly  faces 
the  assumption  which  is  concealed  behind  an  apparent  demand  for  in- 
formation as  to  matters  of  fact.  But  his  assumption  that  I  must  either 
convince  him  of  my  belief  or  admit  its  invalidity  is  easily  disposed  of 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  not  my  business  to  convince  anybody  of  anything 
whatever,  if  I  cannot  rely  upon  human  faculty  to  do  its  duty  in  the 
process.  The  advantage  of  the  sceptic  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  can 
shelter  himself  behind  the  formal  question  for  information  while  he 
tacitly  holds  to  a  dogmatism  which  is  not  willing  to  come  out  into  the 
arena  and  accept  responsibility  for  its  assumptions  or  assertions.  Of 
course,  I  cannot  expect  him  to  believe  unless  I  can  give  him  good  rea- 
sons in  some  way  for  doing  it,  but  neither  can  he  expect  me  to  accept 
his  implied  limitation  of  "  knowledge  "  unless  he  can  give  equally  good 
reasons  for  his  belief.  Both  must  agree  as  to  the  laws  of  thought  in 
order  to  get  any  basis  for  fruitful  interchange  of  ideas  at  this  point  and 
if  this  agreement  cannot  be  obtained  none  can  be.  The  sceptic,  how- 
ever, cannot  well  admit  that  we  actually  do  think  in  terms  of  something 
else  than  "  phenomena"  while  impeaching  the  validity  of  the  process 
and  at  the  same  time  assume  or  assert  that  the  test  of  all  truth  is  the 
facts  of  "  experience,"  because  the  cogency  of  his  contention  against 
transphenomenalism  is  that  the  fact  of  a  mode  of  thought  is  not  guar- 


162  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

antee  of  its  validity  and  he  can  have  no  guarantee  of  the  limitations  of 
"  knowledge  "  to  "phenomena"  except  the  alleged  fact  that  mental 
action  is  so  limited.  But  the  denial  that  facts  or  laws  of  thinking  as 
facts  or  instinctive  habits  can  guarantee  themselves  leaves  the  sceptic 
where  he  must  question  the  assumption  that  "  knowledge"  is  limited 
to  the  "phenomena"  expressed  by  the  predicates  of  judgments  quite 
as  much  as  he  questions  the  extension  of  this  "  knowledge  "  to  the  trans- 
phenomenal  nature  of  the  facts  expressed  by  the  subjects.  This,  how- 
ever, places  him  where  he  ought  to  have  started,  namely,  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  agnostic,  which  is  the  true  scepticism  and  which  will  say  as 
little  about  the  limitations  as  the  extension  of  "  knowledge,"  and  this 
agnosticism  is  the  confession  of  ignorance  which  is  as  great  in  one  as 
in  the  other  of  these  terms.  There  will  be  nothing  to  be  said  against 
this  position,  as  no  argument  or  statement  can  appeal  to  the  lack  of 
mental  power  to  see  a  truth. 

The  same  conclusion  results  from  another  way  of  presenting  the 
case.  The  question  "  what  is  a  thing  "  either  demands  evidence  for  the 
assertion  of  its  existence  or  that  existence  is  admitted  as  a  fact  and  its 
"  nature"  is  asked  for.  That  is  to  say,  in  asking  what  a  thing  is,  we 
have  an  equivocal  question.  We  may  be  doubtful  as  to  the  fact  as- 
serted or  assumed,  or  we  may,  admitting  it  to  be  a  fact,  wish  to  know 
its  "nature."  The  former  is  the  true  sceptical  question,  and  the  latter 
is  a  question  for  further  "  knowledge"  to  make  the  alleged  fact  more 
intelligible.  Now  the  only  answer  to  the  latter  question  is  a  definition, 
as  long  as  the  intensive  judgment  and  its  implication  of  causality  or 
ground  other  than  the  predicate  is  the  subject  of  doubt.  Now  all  defi- 
nition is  possible  only  under  the  principle  of  identity.  The  principle 
of  contradiction  or  difference  is  not  allowed  in  definition.  I  mean,  of 
course,  logical  definition,  and  not  descriptive  definition  in  terms  of  in- 
tensive propositions.  If  then  the  question,  "  What  is  a  thing?  "  is  an- 
swered by  a  definition  and  by  means  of  the  principle  of  identity,  it 
must  be  done  in  terms  of  extensive  judgments  which  are  satisfied  by 
ontological  categories  and  do  not  require  to  more  than  tacitly  assume 
the  aetiological,  if  even  this  much  is  admissible.  Now  this  identity 
required  by  the  definition  must  be  expressed  either  in  terms  of  a  like 
aetiological  category  to  that  which  is  supposed  to  determine  the  mean- 
ing of  the  reality  whose  existence  is  under  suspicion  or  in  terms  of 
phenomena.  But  as  aetiological  existence  is  what  the  sceptical  ques- 
tion doubts,  it  cannot  be  assumed  to  define  it  for  any  purposes  of  con- 
vincing the  doubter,  whatever  else  the  definition  may  effect.  To  the 
sceptic  the  cause  or  ground  is  ' '  unknown  "  and  any  definition  that  he  can 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  163 

accept  as  either  intelligible  or  suggestive  of  truth  must  be  in  terms  of 
what  is  "known"  to  him,  as  he  simply  pushes  his  inquiries  farther. 
But  definition  in  terms  of  what  he  ' '  knows  "  must  represent  predicate 
concepts  of  the  "  phenomenal  "  type  and  not  the  aetiological.  But  this 
would  convince  or  confound  the  sceptic  only  on  the  condition  that  the 
etiological  concepts  remained  indistinguishable  from  the  "phenome- 
nal." That  result  would  resolve  all  judgments  into  the  extensive  and 
leave  "  knowledge"  with  nothing  but  the  principle  of  identity  or  dif- 
ference as  its  determinative  category  and  with  nothing  to  explain  the  dis- 
tinction between  coexistences  and  sequences  that  are  casual  and  those 
that  are  causal.  But  conceding  either  the  truth  or  error  of  this  posi- 
tion, it  is  certain  that  any  attempt  to  answer  the  sceptic's  question  in 
terms  of  the  principle  of  identity,  which  is  all  that  we  can  do  in  the 
communication  of  "knowledge"  from  mind  to  mind,  must  assume 
that  the  conception  by  which  the  aetiological  idea  is  defined  is  "  known  " 
by  the  inquirer  and  that  he  is  asking  for  an  explanation  of  an  individ- 
ual case.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  sceptic  suspects  the  very  conception 
by  which  the  definition  is  possible  and  hence  subject  concepts  are  not 
usable  in  the  process  of  satisfying  his  demand,  and  predicate  concepts, 
which  he  admits  he  does  "  know"  are  neither  disputed  in  regard  to 
their  existence  and  validity  nor  capable  of  proving  a  content  supposed 
to  be  other  than  themselves  unless  the  category  of  causality  be  ad- 
mitted. The  principle  of  identity  will  not  transcend  the  fact  given, 
nor  give  anything  but  an  ontological  explanation.  It  is  primarily  the 
etiological  category  that  explains  phenomena.  It  is  at  least  necessary 
to  explain  their  occurrence  or  existence.  The  limits  of  definition  and 
argument  are  such  that,  unless  the  premises  contain  the  material  truth 
sought,  the  formal  process  can  never  guarantee  it.  This  is  a  truism,  but 
■we  require  to  be  reminded  of  it  at  this  juncture  in  order  to  be  sure  that  it 
will  be  applied  to  the  concrete  case.  Now  however  the  aetiological 
categories  may  coincide  with  the  ontological,  or  to  put  it  more  specif- 
ically, however  the  principles  of  causality  may  coincide  with  that  of 
identity,  the  two  are  not  convertible.  Again  we  must  remark  that  only 
the  principle  of  identity  can  be  involved  in  the  transmission  of 
"  knowledge,"  whether  by  definition  or  ratiocination.  ^Etiological 
principles  can  never  determine  the  process  of  reasoning  as  a  medium 
or  vehicle  for  transmitting  ideas,  so  that  unless  it  is  involved  in  the 
matter  of  the  act  of  communication  causality  can  never  be  found  in 
the  conception  or  conclusion  conveyed.  Consequently  we  cannot  con- 
vince the  sceptic  or  make  our  answer  to  his  question  about  the  "  nature  " 
«of  a  cause  or  ground  intelligible  by  the  only  resource  which  is  left  us 


164  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

after  the  aetiological  principle  is  made  subject  to  the  law  of  ratiocina- 
tive  "  proof."  By  supposition  it  is  not  convertible  with  the  ontologi- 
cal  and  so  cannot  be  subject  to  any  ad  hominem  construction,  and 
hence,  if  admissible,  must  be  the  product  of  individual  and  not  of 
social  functions.  That  is  to  say,  the  sceptic  must  see  it  for  himself 
and  if  he  does  not  there  is  no  way  to  make  him  see  it.  He  must  be 
capable  of  analyzing  the  contents  of  his  own  consciousness  and  these 
must  be  the  same  as  his  neighbor's.  The  same  would  be  true  of  any 
other  principle  which  he  might  question.  The  ontological  categories 
only  happen  not  to  be  disputed,  so  that  the  extensive  judgment  and  its 
interpretation  never  becomes  the  subject  of  doubt.  But  if  he  raised 
any  sceptical  question  as  to  its  validity,  the  social  functions  which  con- 
stitute the  essential  nature  of  the  ratiocinative  process  as  it  now  acts, 
would  never  substantiate  it,  because  its  very  basis  would  be  subject 
to  doubt  and  he  would  have  to  be  turned  over  to  his  personal  conscious- 
ness quite  as  certainly  and  quite  as  absolutely  as  he  must  be  in  the 
aetiological  principles  which  cannot  be  made  convertible  with  the 
ontological,  the  latter  being  the  sole  condition  of  all  social  relations 
and  interchanges  in  the  intellectual  world. 

Having  disposed  of  that  implication  of  the  sceptic's  question  which 
suggests  the  invalidity  of  the  causal  idea  unless  its  "nature  "  is  told  him 
in  terms  of  the  principle  of  identity,  and  hence  having  thrown  him  upon 
the  responsibility  for  conviction  as  to  the  fact  of  a  principle  not  so 
convertible,  there  remains  the  further  examination  of  the  associations 
and  implications  usually  involved  in  the  demand  to  know  what  a 
thing  is. 

The  habit  of  telling  what  a  thing  is  by  means  of  a  definition  leads  to 
the  tendency  to  conceive  this  "nature"  in  terms  of  the  principles 
which  determine  the  meaning  of  a  definition,  and  these  principles  are 
the  ontological.  As  I  have  shown,  all  definitions  are  regulated  by  the 
principle  of  identity  and  difference,  and  the  consequence  is  that  all 
attempts  to  state  the  "  nature"  of  a  fact  or  thing  by  means  of  a  defini- 
tion will  bring  to  the  front  of  consciousness  the  idea  of  identity  and 
difference  as  determinative  of  this  "nature,"  even  though  substantive 
terms  are  employed  in  the  definition.  That  is,  the  extensive  judg- 
ment will  always  carry  with  it  as  its  primary  signification  merely  the 
identity  or  difference  between  subject  and  predicate  without  regard  to 
other  conceptions  indicated  or  indicable  by  its  terms.  The  principle 
of  difference  is  employed,  not  to  determine  the  primary  element  of 
the  definition,  but  the  secondary  or  differential.  This  is  explained 
by  formal  logic.     What  I  wish  to  note  in  the  fact  is  that  the  defini- 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  165 

tion  of  the  "nature  "  of  a  thing  is  not  completed  until  the  differential 
or  specific  as  well  as  its  conferential  or  generic  qualities  are  indicated, 
a  circumstance  that  will  have  some  significance  in  the  sequel  of  this 
discussion. 

The  fundamental  fact  to  be  noticed  in  this  process,  after  we  have 
called  attention  to  the  function  of  definition  in  the  communication  of 
U  knowledge,"  which  has  been  a  studied  object  and  which  keeps  the  idea 
of  identity  and  extensive  judgments  in  the  foreground,  is  that,  in  spite 
of  the  formal  character  of  the  definition  as  embodying  identity,  it  has  all 
the  implications  of  the  intensive  judgment.  The  predicate  of  a  defini- 
tion has  no  meaning  unless  it  indicates,  if  only  by  implication,  the  at- 
tributes or  qualities  of  the  subject.  The  differential  characteristic  can- 
not have  any  other  import,  since  it  is  specifically  excluded  from  the 
generic  or  conferential  term  in  the  case.  The  conferential  properties 
are  implied.  Even  when  the  concepts  defined  represent  attributive 
ideas  the  definition  conceives  the  subject  as  the  possessor  of  a  property 
in  terms  of  the  differentia,  so  as  to  conform  to  the  formal  demands  of 
a  definition.  But  as  this  is  not  always  the  case,  a  mere  relation  being 
used  to  effect  the  same  end,  the  main  point  is  to  observe  that,  in  spite 
of  the  use  of  extensive  judgments  in  the  definition,  the  obverse  side  of 
them  indicates  the  presence  of  the  intensive  judgment  by  implication 
at  least,  and  the  conception  of  qualities,  events,  "phenomena,"  comes 
in  with  its  relative  import  demanding  for  explication  something  else 
than  itself,  whether  that  something  else  turns  out  on  investigation  to 
be  phenomenal  or  transphenomenal.  Besides  the  fact  that  the  inten- 
sive judgment  is  the  prior  form  of  cognition  also  shows  that  the  ulti- 
mate process  of  "  knowledge"  is  in  terms  of  the  intensive  judgment 
and  not  in  the  extensive  as  the  sceptical  position  would  imply.  The 
final  interpretation  of  the  extensive  judgment  enforces  this  view.  This 
means  that  ultimately  the  "  nature"  of  a  thing  is  expressed  by  what  it 
does,  by  the  properties  which  it  exhibits.  This  fact  is  easily  concealed 
by  the  ontological  implications  of  the  extensive  judgment  and  also  by 
the  fact  that,  when  any  statement  is  made,  such  as  "  Snow  is  white," 
the  further  question  to  know  what  "  snow"  is,  leads  most  naturally  to 
the  extensive  judgment  which  conceals  the  intensive  import  behind  the 
employment  of  ontological  principles.  Besides  the  very  question  to 
know  what  the  thing  is  in  terms  of  something  else  than  the  affirmed 
quality  "  white  "  creates  the  impression  that  the  "nature"  of  a  thing 
is  something  else  than  the  fact  stated  and  when  this  something  else  than 
the  predicate  given  is  indicated  observation  will  soon  show  that  it  too 
is  either  a  like  predicate  or  implies  one.  •   The  consequence  is  that  the 


1 66  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ultimate  mode  of  telling  what  a  thing  is  simply  states  what  it  does  or  what 
it  "  is  "  in  intensive  terms.  In  the  question  the  copula  naturally  conveys 
the  conception  of  the  extensive  judgment  and  so  the  idea  of  identity, 
but  remembering  that  the  same  term  in  the  intensive  judgment  is  com- 
patible with  or  implies  the  relation  of  attribute  to  subject,  we  find  that 
"  is  "  can  just  as  well  express  the  "  nature"  of  a  thing  in  its  qualities 
or  what  it  does  as  it  can  in  terms  of  identity  with  something  else. 
This  means  that  the  intensive  judgment  can  as  well  be  chosen  to  ex- 
press the  "  nature"  of  a  thing  as  the  extensive,  though  it  does  not  in- 
volve comparison,  and  represents  the  ultimate  type  of  "knowledge" 
in  expressing  the  nature  and  limits  of  the  process.  We  can,  therefore 
as  well  tell  what  a  thing  is  by  telling  its  attributes  and  what  it  does, 
which  is  only  a  way  of  expressing  its  qualities  in  dynamic  terms,  as  by 
a  definition,  though  the  latter  is  the  only  method  of  communicating 
this  "knowledge"  in  terms  of  the  "experience"  of  others.  When 
therefore  we  want  to  know  what  a  thing  is  we  have  only  to  seek  what 
it  does  or  what  qualities  it  presents,  and  these  are  ultimately  all  that  we 
can  obtain  as  sensible  "  phenomena  "  representing  the  evidence  of  the 
reality  whose  "  nature  "  we  inquire  for  and  whose  "  nature  "  does  not 
need  to  be  conceived  in  any  other  terms. 

Now  as  the  sceptical  question  seems  to  ask  for  something  which  we 
are  supposed  not  to  "  know,"  and  as  this  final  outcome  of  the  analysis 
results  in  the  assumption  that  what  we  "  know  "  is  precisely  the  quali- 
ties or  phenomena  represented  by  the  predicate  we  seem  to  confess  that 
the  aetiological  principle  is  not  "  known,"  and  in  the  adoption  of  the 
phrase  that  "  all  that  can  be  '  known'  is  what  a  thing  does"  we  may 
be  chargeable  with  phenomenalism  after  all  has  been  said  and  done. 
I  do  not  object  to  such  a  conclusion  if  we  understand  rightly  the  use  of 
the  term  "knowledge."  If  "knowledge"  mean  to  have  as  a  phe- 
nomenal or  sensible  datum  of  consciousness,  I  agree  that  we  cannot 
"  know"  any  aetiological  fact  and  it  will  be  hopeless  to  define  it,  as  the 
sceptical  question  would  demand,  especially  in  terms  of  the  category  of 
identity.  But  if  "  knowledge"  mean  also  what  explains  or  is  implied 
by  events,  "phenomena,"  qualities,  etc.,  the  correlates  of  all  that  is 
conceived  as  relative,  then  causes  or  grounds  are  equally  "known" 
though  we  may  not  have  them  as  a  part  of  the  "  phenomenal  "  content 
of  the  act  that  cognizes  them.  In  saying  that  "  phenomena"  are  the 
only  evidence  of  causes  or  grounds  we  do  not  say  that  the  thing  evi- 
denced is  not  "  known,"  except  that  term  be  limited  to  having  the  state 
of  consciousness  without  regard  to  its  implications.  "  Phenomena  "  are 
the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  causes,  not  their  ratio  essendi\  as  conceived 


CONDITIONS    OF  SYNTHETIC  KNOWLEDGE.  167 

under  the  usual  mode  of  representing  it,  namely  by  definition  and  de- 
scription which  are  expressed  in  terms  of  comparison  and  the  principle 
of  identity.  In  saying,  then,  that  "all  we  'know'  is  what  a  thing 
does"  we  only  say  that  the  only  evidence  of  its  existence  is  this  fact, 
but  the  ratio  cognoscendi  does  not  necessarily  determine  the  ratio 
essendi  of  a  thing.  It  is  only  a  way  of  indicating  the  reason  for  the 
mind's  belief  or  assertion  of  a  fact.  The  same  fact  may  be  its  ratio 
essendi,  assuming  that  this  idea  has  as  much  elasticity  as  our  concep- 
tion of  judgment,  which  we  have  seen  may  be  either  intensive  or  exten- 
sive, but  it  will  be  regarded  as  such  only  in  so  far  as  we  adopt  the 
expression  that  a  thing's  "  nature"  is  as  well  indicated  in  what  it  does 
as  in  what  it  is,  expressed  in  terms  of  identity.  Hence  we  may  well 
say  that  "  phenomena"  are  the  evidence  of  causes  or  grounds,  not  their 
"nature"  in  terms  of  identity,  so  that  we  can  describe  this  "  nature" 
in  terms  of  "phenomena"  only  after  the  conception  of  the  intensive 
judgment  which  holds  to  this  "nature"  compatibly  with  the  implica- 
tion of  cause  or  ground  which  the  conception  of  "phenomena"  im- 
plies, whether  the  final  analysis  discovers  an  identity  between  the  pre- 
dicate and  subject  or  not. 


CHAPTER   VI. 


THEORIES   OF   KNOWLEDGE. 


I  have  so  far  only  indicated  the  processes  by  which  what  is  called 
"  knowledge  "  is  obtained  and  have  not  intended  to  determine  finally  by 
such  an  explanation  either  the  nature  or  validity  of  that  "  knowledge  " 
beyond  what  may  be  suggested  by  the  character  of  the  process  itself. 
But  we  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  those  theories  which  have 
meant  to  say  something  about  what  we  are  supposed  to  "  know,"  or 
rather  perhaps  whether  this  "  knowledge  "  involves  the  legitimacy  of 
any  assertion  about  "reality"  beyond  the  states  of  consciousness  as- 
sumed to  "know"  or  not  "know"  it.  These  theories  are  supposed 
to  indicate  the  extent  or  limits  of  "knowledge"  and  to  consider  the 
validity  of  judgments  affecting  those  limits.  The  two  theories  which 
have  been  variously  discussed  in  the  history  of  speculation  in  connec- 
tion with  "perception"  have  been  called  Idealism  and  Realism.  I 
have  already  indicated  the  limits  within  which  I  shall  apply  them, 
namely,  that  they  shall  be  treated  as  epistemological  and  not  noumeno- 
logical  theories.  This  limitation  we  found  to  mean  that  they  are  modes 
of  expression  for  the  nature  and  limits  of  "  knowledge,"  and  especially 
for  the  limits  of  our  "knowledge"  of  external  "  reality."  I  insisted 
that  the  question  of  the  nature  of  a  "reality"  at  any  time  "known" 
was  distinct  from  the  question  of  our  "  knowing"  it  and  I  mean  still 
to  carry  out  this  conception  of  our  problem.  The  reason  for  this  will 
be  more  apparent  later  than  at  present,  as  the  general  usage  of  the  term 
Idealism  as  a  metaphysical  theory  tends  to  prevent  the  immediate  re- 
cognition of  the  more  limited  application  of  it  as  defined  here.  But  if 
we  once  make  clear  the  distinction  between  the  problem  regarding  the 
fact  of  "reality"  and  that  regarding  the  nature  of  it,  we  shall  more 
easily  recognize  the  limitation  of  import  here  assigned  to  the  terms 
Idealism  and  Realism. 

I  must  now  enter  into  a  more  careful  definition  of  these  theories 
and  what  they  attempt  to  do.  All  that  I  have  done  hitherto  is  to  indi- 
cate what  they  are  not  and  what  they  do  not  predetermine.  I  have 
said  that  I  shall  treat  both  of  them  as  quite  compatible  with  either  of 
the  metaphysical  theories,  Materialism  and  Spiritualism.  What  we 
have  next  to  do  is  to  say  what  they  do  mean  in  positive  terms. 

If  I  were  to  ignore  historical  usage  of  the  terms  and  the  philosophi- 


THEORIES  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  1 69 

cal  conceptions  and  systems  which  gave  rise  to  these  two  epistemo- 
logical  theories  I  might  find  it  easy  to  define  them.  I  would  suit  the 
definitions  to  the  problem  to  be  solved  in  "perception"  and  the  tra- 
ditional opposition  to  the  theories.  But  I  might  beg  the  whole  question 
in  this,  and  hence  it  is  better  to  recognize  what  others  have  said  about 
them  at  the  starting  point  of  the  discussion. 

When  I  come  to  look  about,  however,  I  find  that  the  idealists  have 
never  condescended  to  any  clear  definition  of  their  position.  So  many 
different  philosophical  doctrines  have  taken  refuge  under  this  concep- 
tion or  term  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  define  it  clearly.  And  it  seems 
also  to  be  characteristic  of  every  school  of  it  not  to  do  its  philosophical 
thinking  in  a  way  to  favor  clear  definition.  Its  advocates  are  generally 
vociferous  in  their  declarations  identifying  themselves  with  what  they 
call  idealism,  but  they  do  not  take  the  trouble  to  indicate  definitely  what 
the  doctrine  stands  for.  One  exception  can  be  made  to  this  statement, 
or  at  least  apparent  exception.  The  idealist  is  always  opposed  to 
Materialism.  This  is  a  red  rag  to  him  and  always  invokes  his  con- 
tempt. What  this  "  Materialism  "  is,  however,  I  have  never  been  able 
to  identify  or  associate  with  that  Materialism  which  has  already  pro- 
voked controversy.  Hence  I  do  not  find  in  this  opposition  to  Material- 
ism any  definite  hint  of  what  will  define  the  term  "  Idealism."  One 
term  is  as  undefined  as  the  other  in  all  of  the  issues  that  have  given  the 
doctrine  of  Materialism  its  import  and  influence.  Generally  when  a 
term  is  not  definitely  defined  its  relation  to  what  it  is  supposed  to  con- 
tradict is  a  clue  to  its  significance,  and  hence  if  we  knew  what 
"  Materialism  "  represented  we  might  easily  understand  what  Idealism 
meant  by  knowing  what  it  denied.  But  the  traditional  Materialism 
identified  with  Lucretius  and  Epicurus,  and  with  the  modern  atomic 
doctrine  and  its  implications  in  the  explanation  of  the  phenomena  and 
functions  of  organic  life,  besides  being  a  metaphysical  theory,  is  not 
the  conception  against  which  the  idealist  directs  his  opposition.  Con- 
sequently it  affords  no  indication  of  what  we  shall  suppose  Idealism  to 
be  in  any  clearly  defined  issue.  This  would  make  no  difference  to  us 
if  the  idealists  had  supplied  us  always  with  a  definition  of  the  issue  as 
they  understood  it,  as  we  should  not  require  to  resort  to  the  assumed 
negation  of  "Materialism"  for  a  suspicion  of  the  term's  meaning. 
But  I  have  never  yet  found  any  definition  of  the  doctrine  which  would 
apply  in  the  same  sense  to  the  philosophical  doctrines  which  masquerade 
under  the  term,  and  much  less  any  disposition  to  state  clearly  the  issues 
involved  at  the  outset.  The  consequence  of  this  is  that  I  cannot  state 
any  generally  accepted  import  for  the  doctrine  of  Idealism  in  the  Ian- 


170  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

guage  of  its  defenders.      I  could  indicate  what  I  think  their  position  isl- 
and means,  but  this  is  not  allowing  its  advocates  fair  play.     There  are, 
certain  propositions  which  they  usually  agree  are  the  maxims  or  bases- 
of  their  doctrine  and  which  might  be  appealed  to  as  a  definition,  or  an 
indication  of  what  the  definition  would  be.     They  are  such  statements^ 
as  the  following  :     "  All  knowledge  must  be  in  terms  of  consciousness." 
"All  reality  can  be  known  only  in  terms  of  consciousness."     "We 
can  know  nothing  about  things  except  in  terms  of  consciousness." 
"  Things  can  be  known  only  in  relation  to  consciousness,"  etc.     If 
these  statements  were  perfectly  self- interpreting  we  might  determine  ■ 
exactly  what  Idealism  means,  but  they  are  forms  of  expression  that  are 
either  equivocal  or  are  admissible  without  debate  by  the  school  to  which 
the  idealist  is  presumably  opposed.    Unless  the  latter  is  at  the  same  time 
a  phenomenalist  he  does  not  unequivocally  commit  himself  to  the  state- 
ment that  we  know  only  mental  states  even  when  he  limits  knowledge . 
to  phenomena.     Consequently  between  the  sceptical  position  that  we, 
"know"  nothing  but  subjective  states  and  the  relativist's  position  that:  • 
we  do  not  "  know  "  things  in  themselves  but  only  "phenomena,"  we 
do  not  find  any  assured  limitations  to  the  idealist's  conception  of  his. 
doctrine. 

I  have  also  remarked  in  a  previous  chapter  that  Idealism  has  been 
opposed  historically  to  Realism.  If,  then,  we  can  find  a  clear  concep- 
tion of  what  the  realist  maintains  we  may  be  able  to  ascertain  just  what 
the  idealist  would  have  us  understand  by  his  position.  Now  there  is- 
one  general  conception  for  which  Realism  has  universally  stood.  It  is- 
that  consciousness  can  know  something  beyond  itself.  That  is 
"  knowledge"  can  be  of  an  object  not  itself.  Now  if  Idealism  is  to 
be  conceived  as  disputing  this  view  its  position  is  clear  and  it  could  be 
defined  as  the  doctrine  which  limits  the  "  knowledge  "  of  consciousness 
to  itself.  This  would  establish  a  clear  antithesis  between  the  two  doc- 
trines, and  also  identify  Idealism  with  Phenomenalism  of  the  subjec- 
tive type.  But  unfortunately  for  this  clear  conception  of  the  problem,, 
which  would  make  Idealism  identical  with  Solipsism,  we  have  to  reckon 
with  practically  three  schools  of  realists  and  at  least  two  of  idealists. 
The  realists  divide  as  already  indicated  into  the  Natural  or  Intuitive 
and  the  Hypothetical  Realists.  The  hypothetical  realists  admit  that 
sensations  do  not  present  or  represent  the  nature  of  the  object  of 
"  knowledge,"  but  are  affections  of  the  subject.  They  interpret  the 
belief  in  the  external  object  or  "  reality"  as  the  product  of  an  infer- 
ence, based  on  the  principle  of  causality.  The  natural  realists  deny 
that  it  is  an  inference  and  maintain  that  it  is  an  immediate  object  of 


THEORIES    OF  KNOWLEDGE.  171 

consciousness.  But  there  are  two  types  of  this  which  I  may  call  the 
naive  and  the  reflective,  or  perhaps  philosophical.  The  naive  is  that 
of  the  common  uneducated  man  who  has  never  suspected  that  there  can 
be  a  problem  in  the  matter  and  who  does  not  know  or  reflect  upon  the 
relation  of  illusion  to  the  question.  He  seems  never  to  suppose  that 
the  nature  of  things  might  be  different  from  what  they  appear  in  his 
sensational  experience.  He  takes  his  uncritical  or  uncriticised  judg- 
ment as  the  final  word  on  the  matter.  The  reflective  realist,  not  wish- 
ing to  expose  the  certitude  and  felt  necessity  of  his  belief  to  the  pre- 
carious certification  of  inference  and  also  wishing  to  admit  the  problems 
incident  to  illusion  and  critical  judgments  of  sense,  resorts  to  an  intui- 
tive process  for  giving  this  "reality,"  though  he  makes  it  now  an  ap- 
plication of  the  principle  of  causality  and  now  a  direct  "  perception" 
based  on  the  primary  qualities  of  matter,  with  allowance  for  the  claims 
of  Idealism  in  the  secondary  qualities.  It  will  be  in  this,  however, 
that  the  reflective  realist  comes  very  near  to  hypothetical  Realism,  so 
near  that  it  might  seem  possible  to  push  him  over  the  precipice  into 
this  by  dexterous  logic.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  type  of  idealist, 
sometimes  called  Cosmothetic,  which  adopts  the  statement  that  all  im- 
mediate "  knowledge  "  is  limited  to  the  states  of  consciousness,  but 
admits  that  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  an  external  world  is  too  tena- 
cious to  be  resolved  into  a  sort  of  nihilism  and  so  admits  that  this 
"  reality  "  is  an  object  of  inference,  and  thus  this  type  of  thinkers  be- 
comes identical  with  the  hypothetical  realists.  In  order,  therefore,  to 
be  absolutely  opposed  to  Realism  the  idealist  must  limit  the  conception 
of  u  knowledge "  to  immediate  certitude  and  presentations  not  repre- 
sentative of  an  external  "  reality  "  and  adopt  the  doctrine  of  Solipsism. 
Any  other  position  brings  it  into  agreement  with  realism  in  some  form, 
and  the  opposition  of  those  theories  is  not  what  it  seems  in  the  discus- 
sions of  philosophers.  How  apparent  this  is  in  every  form  of  "  ob- 
jective "  Idealism  will  be  seen  by  further  analysis  and  discussion. 

Not  having  been  able  to  obtain  a  definition  of  either  Idealism  or 
Realism  that  would  embody  a  single  clear  issue  between  them,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  examine  the  various  positions  indicated  and  the  several 
conceptions  involved  in  the  postulates  of  the  modern  idealists.  There 
is,  of  course,  a  clear  opposition  between  naive  Realism  and  every  form 
of  Idealism.  But  the  same  opposition  exists  between  naive  and  reflec- 
tive Realism,  or  between  naive  and  hypothetical  Realism.  Hence  the 
idealist  gains  nothing  by  indiscriminate  assault  upon  Realism.  We 
must  first  know  just  what  particular  type  of  Realism  he  is  attacking 
before  we  accord  him  the  advantage  of  the  argument.     We  may  find 


172  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

him  doing  nothing  more  than  repudiating  the  ideas  of  his  childhood 
without  exhibiting  due  knowledge  of  the  history  of  human  thought 
where  Realism  has  stood  for  something  more  defensible  against  scepti- 
cism than  the  crude  ideas  of  peasants  and  children.  Whatever  his 
errors  and  misconceptions  of  idealists  he  has  always  intended  that  his 
doctrine  should  be  expressed  in  a  firm  confidence  in  the  belief  of  some- 
thing else  than  the  individual's  states  of  consciousness.  It  is  the  definite 
and  explicit  antithesis  of  Phenomenalism  in  all  forms  in  the  funda- 
mental postulate  that  a  "  reality  "  other  than  mental  states  is  a  certain 
or  necessary  truth.  Idealism  can  oppose  this  only  by  taking  up  the 
position  that  our  "knowledge"  is  limited  to  our  subjective  states  or 
phenomena,  that  is,  to  Solipsism.  We  are  brought,  therefore,  to  the 
examination  of  this  postulate  and  the  various  propositions  which  are 
advanced  to  define  or  support  the  doctrine  of  Idealism. 

If  we  adopt  the  statement  that  we  ' '  know  "  only  phenomena  and 
then  define  "  phenomena  "as  "  appearances,"  meaning  thereby  states  of 
consciousness  and  those  of  the  subject  having  them,  we  have  Solipsism 
as  the  interpretation.  To  escape  it  we  should  have  to  enter  into  an 
analysis  and  definition  of  the  terms  "  knowledge"  and  "  phenomena." 
If  we  adopt  as  the  premise  of  our  argument  the  proposition  that  we 
can  "know  things  only  in  terms  of  consciousness"  we  have  a  state- 
ment which  is  not  so  clear  as  it  seems  unless  it  is  identical  with  the 
one  just  mentioned.  If  identical  with  this  the  conclusion  will  be  the 
same.  If  not  identical  with  it  the  only  meaning  that  it  can  apparently 
have  other  than  this  is  either  that  we  cannot  "  know  "  anything  with- 
out being  conscious  of  it,  or  that  we  cannot  be  certain  of  anything 
except  our  states  of  consciousness.  The  former  is  a  truism  for  both 
the  realist  and  the  idealist,  except  that  it  assumes  "  conscious  knowl- 
edge "  to  be  of  the  subject's  own  states  only,  in  which  case  it  again  ter- 
minates in  Solipsism.  The  latter  does  not  exclude  a  rational  belief 'in 
what  is  not  an  immediate  datum  of  consciousness  so  that  the  opposition 
between  Realism  and  Idealism  would  be  reduced  to  the  question 
whether  the  existence  of  something  other  than  the  subject's  own  states 
was  an  object  of  mediate  or  immediate  "  knowledge,"  or  whether  it 
was  an  object  of  "belief"  or  an  object  of  "knowledge."  This  is  a  legiti- 
mate distinction  to  make,  but  it  has  no  practical  importance  of  great 
dimensions,  unless  we  accord  belief  far  less  influence  on  conduct  than 
is  the  fact. 

It  is  in  the  relation  to  action  that  the  whole  crux  of  the  interests 
involved  is  to  found.  All  belief  and  all  "  knowledge"  are  of  interest 
to  men  only  as  they  affect  their  actions.     No  one  would  care  for  theo- 


THEORIES   OF  KNOWLEDGE.  1 73 

ries  of  "  reality  "  and  "  knowledge"  were  it  not  for  the  validity  and 
effect  of  certain  accepted  maxims  or  supposed  truths  on  the  question  of 
the  rationality  of  conduct.  If  there  be  no  hobgoblins,  for  instance,  I 
do  not  have  to  regulate  my  action  on  the  assumption  that  there  are  such 
facts.  If  there  be  no  precipice  in  front  of  me  I  can  continue  my  walk 
without  personal  danger  in  the  desired  direction.  Now  it  is  unfortu- 
nate for  this  discussion  between  Idealism  and  Realism  that  certain  im- 
plications are  associated  with  the  phrases  in  which  the  limits  of 
"  knowledge  "  are  expressed.  To  say  that  I  "  know  only  phenomena," 
or  that  I  "  know  only  my  own  states,"  is  to  imply  that  there  is  some- 
thing or  that  there  may  be  something  which  I  do  not  know.  It  is 
agreed  on  all  hands  that  there  is  reason  to  assign  decided  limits  to  our 
"knowledge."  But  it  is  customary  to  interpret  the  expression  "I 
don't  know  "  as  one  permitting  a  freedom  in  regard  to  action  and  in- 
action that  is  not  admissible  in  the  case  of  "  knowledge."  Scepticism 
has  always  claimed  a  freedom  in  the  absence  of  "  knowledge  "  which 
it  would  not  assert  if  it  were  certain  that  the  object  of  doubt  were 
"  known."  Hence  it  is  a  natural  tendency  to  interpret  the  limitation 
of  "  knowledge  "  to  subjective  states  as  implying  the  right  of  indiffer- 
ence in  action  related  to  the  external  "reality"  supposedly  not 
"  known."  For  example,  if  I  am  entitled  to  ignore  the  existence  of 
any  thing  not  "  known  "  to  be  a  fact  when  I  come  to  act,  I  might 
ignore  the  walls  of  my  room  on  the  assumption  that  I  "  know"  noth- 
ing more  than  my  states  of  consciousness.  This,  of  course,  is  the  con- 
ception of  the  case  which  really  or  apparently  gave  force  to  Johnson's 
reply  to  Berkeley  in  the  famous  example  of  kicking  the  stone.  It  may 
or  may  not  be  a  misconception  of  the  problem  on  which  the  difficulty 
is  founded.  With  this  I  am  not  concerned.  I  am  only  indicating  the 
conceptions  in  the  general  habits  of  mankind  and  the  use  of  language 
that  evokes  opposition  whenever  such  fundamental  statements  as  the 
idealists  make  are  made  the  premises  of  a  doctrine,  and  we  are  entitled 
to  mention  the  fact  as  a  means  of  demanding  a  critical  exposition  of 
the  real  meaning  of  their  terms  consistent  with  conduct.  If  the  idealist 
would  supplement  his  denial  of  the  "  knowledge  of  external  reality," 
which  is  an  implicaton  of  the  limitation  of  it  to  consciousness,  by  as- 
serting the  rights  of  belief  where  direct  and  immediate  "  knowledge" 
is  not  possible,  the  case  might  be  different.  But  in  ignoring  this 
resource  for  legitimating  the  action  of  men  toward  that  which  may  not 
be  considered  an  object  of  "knowledge"  he  actually,  if  indirectly, 
lends  support  to  the  popular  conception  of  the  absurdity  of  his  position 
and  so  does  Dr.  Johnson's  mode  of  illustrating  it. 


174  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

What  the  idealist  ought  to  realize  is  that  the  primary  difficulty  with 
his  doctrine  is  the  equivocal  meaning  of  the  term  "knowledge."  I 
have  already  called  attention  to  its  double  meaning,  both  of  certitude 
and  systematization,  in  which  the  latter  conception  involves  nothing 
more  than  the  probability  of  induction,  and  also  the  further  double 
meaning  of  "  perceiving  "  and  having  or  being.  It  is  this  latter  equiv- 
ocation which  I  wish  to  notice  more  carefully  for  the  present. 

There  is  a  natural  tendency  to  identify  the  conception  of  ' '  know- 
ing "  with  having  a  state  of  consciousness.  This  grows  out  of  the 
frequent,  if  not  general,  assumption  that  intuitive  or  immediate  con- 
sciousness is  possible  only  for  the  limits  of  consciousness  as  a  func- 
tional activity  of  the  subject.  We  noticed  in  discussing  Apprehension 
that  we  could  not  finally  distinguish  between  sensation  and  apprehen- 
sion, or  mentation  and  apprehension,  at  least  in  their  numerical  aspects. 
This  suggests  to  the  mind  that  "knowing"  and  "being"  a  state  of 
consciousness  are  the  same.  The  consequence  of  this  tendency,  con- 
scious or  unconscious,  should  induce  the  idealist  to  analyze  carefully 
the  propositions  on  which  he  founds  his  general  doctrine,  and  if  he 
thinks  that  immediate  "knowledge,"  or  "knowing"  is  or  implies 
"  being"  or  having  a  state  of  consciousness,  he  should  distinguish  that 
certitude  which  he  accords  to  the  belief  in  objective  "  reality  "  from  the 
certitude  of  "  knowledge."  That  is,  he  should  recognize  two  sources 
of  certitude,  if  he  admits  the  fact  of  this  certitude  in  regard  to  both  in- 
ternal and  external  "reality."  This  would  put  an  end  to  illusions  and 
controversies  about  the  meaning  of  his  theory.  The  question  is  not 
whether  we  shall  call  our  convictions  regarding  objective  "  reality " 
an  act  of  "  knowledge,"  but  whether  our  convictions  are  either  cer- 
tain or  rational,  or  sufficiently  firm  and  certifiable  to  give  our  conduct 
a  rational  meaning. 

The  best  way  to  test  the  meaning  of  Idealism  and  its  relation  to  so- 
called  Realism  as  an  opposing  theory  is  to  ascertain  whether  the 
idealists  are  willing  to  accept  the  real  or  apparent  logical  consequence 
of  their  fundamental  propositions  which  lead  to  Solipsism.  There  is 
an  interpretation  to  these  propositions  which  leads  nowhere  else.  The 
limitation  of  "knowledge"  to  states  of  consciousness  naturally  implies, 
to  many  people  at  least,  that  the  subject  cannot  transcend  his  own  men- 
tal acts  in  what  he  "knows"  or  believes.  If  the  idealist  actually 
accepts  this  position,  or  Solipsism,  it  is  difficult,  if  not  absolutely  im- 
possible to  dislodge  him.  I  know  of  no  way  to  refute  Solipsism.  It 
is  logical  and  offers  no  premise,  when  strictly  maintained,  for  an  ad 
hominem  argument  against  it  and  it  is  difficult  to  secure  any  other 


THEORIES    OF  KNOWLEDGE.  1 75 

argument  when  ad  rem  considerations  are  not  appreciated  by  the  scep- 
tic who  insists  on  being  logically  consistent  in  the  subjective  interpre- 
tation of  "  knowledge."  But  I  doubt  whether  there  has  ever  been  an 
idealist  who  would  for  a  moment  accept  the  solipsistic  interpretation  of 
his  doctrine.  Even  Berkeley,  when  he  insisted  on  denying  the  exis- 
tence of  matter,  was  emphatic  in  the  affirmation  of  something  else  than 
his  own  states  of  consciousness.  He  admitted  the  existence  of  some 
other  "reality"  than  himself,  something  "outside"  himself,  even  if 
he  called  it  "  spirit"  (God)  and  other  "  minds"  (men  and  animals) 
than  his  own.  Other  idealists  quite  universally  agree  that  there  are 
other  individual  beings  with  states  of  consciousness  besides  themselves. 
They  are  very  vociferous  about  social  units  or  social  consciousness  and 
not  one  of  them  would  allow  it  to  be  supposed  that  he  had  any  solipsis- 
tic sympathies.  All  this,  whatever  the  phraseology  adopted  in  their 
fundamental  espistemological  maxims,  simply  proves  that  they  accept 
in  some  way  the  realistic  conception  of  the  possibility  that  conscious- 
ness transcends  itself  in  what  it  posits.  That  is,  it^^knows  "  some- 
thing besides  its  own  states,  though  if  that  is  an  objectionable  term, 
we  may  say  that  it  accepts  the  existence  of  transsubjective  facts  with 
the  same  certitude  that  it  feels  in  regard  to  the  subjective,  call  the  latter 
what  you  will.  This  belief  is  an  acceptance  of  the  fundamental  postu- 
late of  Realism  and  makes  Idealism  identical  with  it  in  all  essential 
characteristics.  It  appears  then  that  the  defence  of  Solipsism  is  the 
only  hope  of  any  direct  and  clear  opposition  between  Idealism  and 
Realism.  The  question  as  to  the  nature  of  objective  "reality"  does 
not  enter  into  the  controversy  so  far  as  the  pi-oblem  of  transcending 
consciousness  is  concerned.  There  are  differences  of  opinion  on  this 
point,  but  they  are  not  affected  by  the  question  whether  the  area  of 
"knowledge"  is  or  is  not  limited  to  the  states  and  affections  of  the 
subject.  If  we  can  on  either  theory  transcend  consciousness  in  what 
is  affirmed  to  exist,  that  is,  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  subject, 
we  have  a  position  that  does  not  define  its  own  limits  and  it  will  only 
be  a  question  of  what  the  capacities  of  the  subject  are  and  the  facts  to 
determine  whether  this  transsubjective  fact  is  or  is  not  like  the  state 
which  "knows"  it.  On  the  fundamental  question  of  epistemology 
therefore  Idealism  and  Realism  do  not  differ  from  each  other  in  their 
doctrine,  and  there  is  no  fair  excuse  why  the  animosities  real  or  appar- 
ent between  them  should  be  any  longer  entertained. 

There  is  a  decided  difference  of  opinion  between  the  naive  realist 
and  the  scientific  idealist,  but  this  is  nothing  more  than  the  difference 
between  the  clodhopper  and  the  educated  man  on  all  questions  in  any 


176  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

subject.  It  is  a  difference  of  culture,  of  breadth  of  knowledge,  and  not 
of  opinion  on  the  question  whether  "  knowledge  "  has  a  range  of  asser- 
tion beyond  the  subject's  states.  The  idealist  who  insists  upon  assert- 
ing or  implying  that  Realism  has  had  no  other  meaning  than  the  un- 
critical conceptions  of  the  uneducated  would  give  it,  either  ignores  the 
facts  of  history  in  philosophy  or  he  is  interested  in  the  misrepresenta- 
tion of  the  case.  For  it  is  apparent  to  the  merest  tyro  in  philosophy 
that,  ever  since  the  Sophists  and  the  later  Sceptics  it  has  been  a  prob- 
lem to  explain  how  consciousness  could  "  know  "  anything  but  its  own 
states,  and  that  the  realist  has  stood  for  the  possibility  of  "  knowing" 
more  than  these.  It  is  true  that  often  the  realist,  in  proportion  as  his 
education  or  interests  identified  him  with  the  naive  conceptions  of  man- 
kind generally,  thought  that  we  as  directly  "knew"  the  nature  of 
' '  reality  "  other  than  consciousness  as  well  as  the  fact  that  there  was  a 
transcendent  existence.  But  the  historical  position  of  the  hypothetical 
realist,  as  well  the  fact  that  the  very  conception  of  the  "  real"  other 
than  the  "  ideal  "  does  not  commit  the  mind  unequivocally  to  the  nature 
of  it,  shows  that  we  have  no  right  to  impress  upon  Realism  the  uncriti- 
cal conceptions  of  uneducated  people  simply  to  save  an  aristocratic 
and  respectable  position  for  Idealism.  On  the  only  point  having  any 
interest  in  epistemology,  namely,  the  transcendency  of  "  knowledge," 
they  are  essentially  agreed.  That  conception  of  Idealism  prevalent  in 
Ethics  I  do  not  admit  as  relevant  in  this  question.  In  epistemology 
Idealism  is  a  theory  as  to  what  we  "  know"  as  fact.  In  Ethics  it  is 
not  a  name  for  a  theory  of  any  "reality"  other  than  or  "outside" 
consciousness,  but  for  the  doctrine  that  "  ideals  "  are  the  still  unrealized 
object  of  consciousness.  It  is  a  name  for  what  ought  to  be  as  distinct 
from  what  is.  Or  it  is  the  name  for  the  fact  that  man  can  create  an 
order  in  the  physical  and  social  world  better  than  a  given  order,  so  that 
ethical  Idealism  is  a  name  for  possible  ends  of  volition  that  are  desir- 
able and  not  mere  facts  of  cognition  or  "  knowledge"  before  the  act  of 
idealization  takes  place.  The  consequence  is  that  Idealism  in  the  ethi- 
cal sense  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  epistemological  question  of 
the  subjective  or  transsubjective  range  of  "  knowledge." 

There  have  been,  however,  certain  advantages  to  reflective  thought 
associated  with  the  development  of  Idealism  that  the  realists  have  not 
been  any  more  forward  to  claim  than  the  idealists.  They  are  the  re- 
sults of  scepticism.  The  only  element  in  Idealism  that  has  been  of  any 
value  to  speculative  thought  has  been  that  of  scepticism,  and  the  em- 
phasis upon  the  anthropocentric  point  of  view  which  it  enforces.  It 
has  not  been  the  suggestions  of  the  term  "  Idealism"  that  have  done 


THEORIES    OF  KNOWLEDGE.  I  77 

the  work,  but  the  fact  of  scepticism  at  the  basis  of  the  whole  movement 
and  which  could  conceal  its  own  operation  under  an  orthodox  mask. 
If  the  idealist  had  avowed  that  it  was  scepticism  that  lay  at  the  basis  of 
his  system  and  tendencies  he  would  have  received  no  hearing,  but  by 
concealing  this  fact  and  adjusting  himself  in  some  way  to  the  conser- 
vative instincts  and  beliefs  of  mankind  he  has  been  able  to  secure  the 
respect  of  the  intellectuals  and  of  the  religious  type  while  he  evaded 
classification  with  the  untutored  plebs.  His  sympathies,  intellectual 
and  moral  have  always  been  on  the  side  of  what  is  best  in  human 
achievement  and  aspiration,  though  this  required  him  to  mediate  be- 
tween ignorant  conservatism  and  intolerent  radicalism.  The  necessity 
of  concealing  the  sceptical  basis  of  his  system  and  of  maintaining 
silence  on  the  popular  religious  ideas  has  always  exposed  him  to  the 
charge  of  hypocrisy  by  those  temperaments  that  love  and  exalt  free- 
dom, but  this  has  been  the  price  which  he  paid  for  the  opportunity  to 
be  serviceable  at  all.  This  is  clear  in  the  philosophical  systems  of  the 
great  idealists  who  could  be  neither  clear  and  radical  nor  orthodox  and 
conservative  on  any  of  the  great  problems  of  theology.  On  the  other 
hand  the  realist  has  allowed  his  system  to  be  associated  with  the  inter- 
ests of  dogmatism  in  both  philosophy  and  theology  and  hence  has  dis- 
credited its  intellectual  acumen  as  much  as  the  idealist  had  compro- 
mised his  clearness  and  sincerity.  Idealism  conceals  in  its  folds  the 
seeds'  of  both  "  culture  and  anarchy,"  depending  on  the  question 
whether  its  issue  is  in  Solipsism  or  a  modified  realism.  On  the  other 
hand,  realism  conceals  the  tendencies  of  both  imperialism  and  social- 
ism, depending  on  the  question  whether  it  issues  in  dogmatism  or  a 
modified  idealism.  All  these  sympathies  and  antipathies,  however, 
were  not  the  necessary  consequence  logically  of  any  fundamental  differ- 
ence between  the  two  schools  of  thought  in  the  essential  question  of 
epistemology  as  I  have  defined  it,  namely,  the  question  of  fact  regard- 
ing the  subjective  or  transsubjective  capacity  of  "  knowledge,"  but  of 
other  motives  and  influences  altogether.  The  consequence  is  that  I 
attach  no  importance  whatever  in  epistemology  to  the  controversy  be- 
tween Idealism  and  Realism  unless  the  former  accepts  the  most  palp- 
able interpi-etation  of  its  language  and  identifies  itself  with  Solipsism. 
On  any  other  view  its  real  beliefs  are  the  same  as  Realism,  as  I  have 
shown,  on  all  the  questions  having  any  value  for  clear  thinking  and 
the  determination  of  practical  truth. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  CRITERIA  OF  TRUTH. 

Pilate's  question,  '  What  is  truth?'  was  an  echo  of  Grzeco-Roman 
philosophy  and  was  probably  not  appreciated  in  its  sceptical  sense  by 
the  person  to  whom  it  was  put.  But  whether  so  or  not  it  is  the  ques- 
tion of  all  inquiring  minds  and  assumes  either  a  desire  for  mere  infor- 
mation as  to  facts  or  a  demand  for  proof  of  assertions  already  made. 
The  conception  of  a  "  criterion"  for  truth  seems  to  have  first  been 
suggested  by  the  Stoics,  though  it  was  implied  by  the  work  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  It  indicates  that  there  is  a  standard  by  which  truth  is 
to  be  adjudged  or  measured.  The  demand  for  such  a  criterion  may 
be  made  in  a  sceptical  spirit  in  which  it  appears  to  deny  the  possibility 
of  truth.  If  this  is  its  meaning  it  destroys  itself,  as  the  denial  of  any 
and  all  truth  whatever  is  self -contradictory.  This  position  has  itself 
to  be  true  in  order  to  make  the  question  or  doubt  rational.  This  is  the 
simple  answer  to  universal  scepticism,  which  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  is  impossible.  But  while  Pyrrhonism  is  impossible  it  is  equally 
certain  that  we  cannot  say  that  all  conceptions  and  opinions  are  true. 
That  is,  between  universal  affirmation  and  universal  denial  neither  is 
true,  but  that  the  truth  lies  somewhere  intermediate.  To  distinguish, 
therefore,  what  is  concretely  true,  or  what  is  true  in  individual  cases, 
requires  what  may  be  called  a  criterion  or  evidence.  This  is  to  say 
that  any  statement  made  cannot  stand  on  its  own  basis,  unless  it  is 
what  is  called  a  self-evident  truth,  and  consequently  what  does  not 
evince  its  own  validity  must  have  some  other  fact  than  itself  to  secure 
its  acceptance.  This,  then,  is  what  is  meant  when  we  demand  a  cri- 
terion of  truth.  The  abstract  form  of  statement  has  the  unfortunate 
implication  that  a  criterion  must  be  had  for  absolutely  all  truth,  but 
the  impossibility  of  universal  doubt,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  exist- 
ence of  self-evident  propositions  on  the  other,  show  that  the  demand 
for  criteria  has  its  limitations.  These  limitations  circumscribe  the 
area  between  possible  and  necessary  truth,  and  so  define  those  cases 
whose  enunciation  does  not  carry  with  them  their  own  credentials. 

But  there  is  no  single  simple  criterion  of  truth  because  there  is  no 
single  truth.  Truths  are  too  manifold  in  number  and  kind  to  be  deter- 
minable by  any  simple  standard.  Each  class  of  truths  has  its  own  cri- 
teria or  credentials,  even  if  the  ultimate  source  of  certitude  in  all 
178 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  1 79 

cases  is  one.  This  is  because  the  term  "  truth"  applies  to  beliefs  as 
well  as  knowledge,  to  the  credible,  rational  and  probable  as  well  as 
the  certain.  The  field,  therefore,  over  which  criteria  have  to  be 
applied  becomes  very  large,  and  this  is  made  all  the  more  apparent 
when  we  recognize  that  in  the  application  of  the  conception  of  criteria 
the  distinction  between  mediate  and  immediate  "knowledge"  has  to 
be  drawn  and  each  type  of  '*  knowledge  "  considered  in  its  own  way. 
The  term  itself,  whatever  else  it  implies,  embodies  all  the  functions 
supplied  in  the  ideas  of  evidence  and  proof.  It  represents  whatever 
will  guarantee  the  truth  of  a  statement  other  than  its  assertion,  and  is 
often  also  identified  with  the  process  which  guarantees  a  self-evident 
truth.  In  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  however,  "criterion"  must 
represent  a  "  mark,"  fact  or  incident  which  will  be  a  universal  test  of 
what  would  appear  doubtful  without  its  presence.  It  is  this  equivo- 
cation in  its  meaning,  varying  in  nature  according  to  the  field  in  which 
it  is  applied  that  makes  it  necessary  to  analyze  the  problem.  But  the 
first  distinction  to  be  observed  in  the  attempt  to  ascertain  the  criteria 
of  truth  is  that  between  mediate  and  immediate  "knowledge."  Mediate 
"  knowledge"  or  truth  will  have  to  recognize  a  distinction  between 
certitude  and  probability  which  involves  the  difference  of  criteria  in 
deduction  and  induction.  Then  in  any  case  it  will  be  necessary  to  dis- 
tinguish between  primary  and  secondary,  or  ultimate  and  derived  truth 
in  the  application  of  criteria.  This  last  distinction  coincides  with  that 
between  immediate  and  mediate  "  knowledge"  and  so  must  be  treated 
as  one  and. the  same  problem.  We  have,  then,  as  our  primary  dis- 
tinction that  between  mediate  or  derived  and  immediate  or  ultimate 
truth.  Following  this  comes  the  distinction  between  the  two  types  of 
derived  or  mediate  "  knowledge,"  and  this  gives  rise  to  that  between 
Logic  and  Scientific  Method,  as  subdivisions  of  ratiocinative  methods, 
the  first  being  the  name  for  the  formal  and  the  second  for  the  material 
criteria  of  "  knowledge."  Consequently  the  three  criteria  of  truth 
which  invite  discussion  are  "  Intuition,"  "  experience,"  or  any  assumed 
process  of  immediate  "  perception,"  Logic,  and  Scientific  Method. 

It  would  appear  that  these  ought  to  be  examined  in  their  order  as 
stated,  proceeding  from  the  simpler  to  the  more  complex.  But  there 
are  reasons  in  the  general  problem  of  "  knowledge"  for  taking  them 
up  in  a  different  order.  The  fact  that  scepticism  can  variously  raise 
questions  about  the  finality  of  ratiocination  in  the  determination  of 
truth  and  thus  convert  the  whole  question  into  the  validity  of  what 
must  itself  determine  the  results  of  reasoning  requires  us  to  examine 
this  process  of  ratiocination  and  its  relation  to  the  determination  of  truth 


l8o  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

as  the  first  step  in  answering  the  query  put  by  the  doubter.  Conse- 
quently I  think  it  best  to  discuss  first  the  nature  and  functions  of  Logic 
in  the  determination  of  "  knowledge  "  and  ascertain  where  we  have  to 
look  for  the  ultimate  test  of  truth,  and  consequently  the  means  for  a 
final  reply  to  scepticism. 

I.    Logic. 

There  has  been  such  a  wide  divergence  of  opinion  as  to  the  nature 
of  Logic  that  it  will  be  necessary  to  examine  its  history  and  to  define 
it  somewhat  carefully.  This  diversity  of  conception  is  indicated  very 
clearly  in  the  statement  of  Adamson,  who,  after  giving  a  list  of  logi- 
cians, remarks  that  "  in  tone,  in  method,  in  aim,  in  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, in  extent  of  field,  they  diverge  so  widely  as  to  appear,  not  so 
many  different  expositions  of  the  same  science,  but  so  many  different 
sciences."  This  is  unquestionably  a  fact,  and  a  regrettable  fact,  as 
it  shows  an  equivocal  conception  of  the  subject  which  prevents  all 
clear  thinking  until  some  agreement  is  found  in  the  proper  functions 
of  the  science  or  conception  of  the  term  that  will  enable  us  to  make 
any  progress  in  the  discussion  of  intellectual  problems. 

The  reader  will  remember  that,  in  the  classification  of  the  sciences, 
I  treated  Logic  merely  as  a  department  of  Epistemology,  namely  as 
that  which  deals  with  the  ratiocinative  processes,  while  the  other 
departments  of  Epistemology  were  represented  in  Apprehension  and 
Cognition  with  their  various  fields.  I  shall  continue  so  to  treat  it  and 
not  to  regard  it  as  in  any  proper  sense  a  substitute  or  synonym  for 
Epistemology.  I  shall  limit  it  to  the  science  of  reasoning,  the  laws 
of  thought  as  ratiocinative.  But  the  determination  of  its  function  in 
the  acquisition  or  verification  of  truth  can  be  effected  only  by  an 
examination  of  some  historical  conceptions. 

Aristotle's  Organon  was  a  combination  of  Epistemology  and  the 
science  of  Formal  Logic.  It  arose  out  of  the  situation  which  evoked 
the  dialogues  of  Plato,  who  was  inspired  by  the  desire  to  overthrow 
the  doctrine  of  scepticism  as  he  found  it  in  the  Sophists.  Plato  laid 
down  no  rules  for  governing  human  thought.  He  simply  reasoned 
and  did  not  reach  the  stage  of  development  in  which  some  definite 
criteria  of  "  knowledge"  should  be  formulated.  Aristotle  saw  that  it 
was  necessary  to  systematize  the  processes  which  Plato  had  used  and 
his  Organon  was  the  consequence.  The  fact  that  the  whole  system 
was  evoked  by  the  necessity  of  answering  scepticism  gave  the  subject 
an  epistemological  coloring,  though  it  is  noticeable,  and  is  perhaps 
remarkable,  that  preliminary  psychological  analysis  of  elementary 
mental  processes  does  not  enter  into  his  conception  of  the  problem. 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  IOl 

The  consequence  is  that  the  logical  outcome  of  the  system,  in  spite  of 
its  epistemological  coloring  and  aim,  finally  develops  into  formal 
Logic  alone.  But  as  Aristotle  conceived  the  Organon  it  was  an  in- 
strument in  the  acquisition  of  material  truth  as  well  as  a  formal 
science,  the  distinction  not  then  being  so  clearly  drawn  as  now.  The 
simple  reason  for  this  tendency  to  develop  into  a  purely  formal  science 
was  twofold.  First,  the  Greek  reflective  consciousness  had  no  con- 
fidence in  sense  perception.  It  was  the  discovery  of  its  illusory  nature 
that  illicite'd  all  attempts  to  vindicate  belief  and  "knowledge."  In 
admitting  that  sense  could  not  determine  truth  the  Greek  could  only 
confide  in  reasoning,  Logos.  Second,  the  Christian  system  abandoned 
all  study  of  external  nature  and  so  was  not  interested  in  phenomena 
that  required  inductive  methods,  with  the  special  emphasis  upon  the 
observation  of  facts  which  necessitated  at  least  some  respect  for  sense 
perception.  Its  world  was  a  transcendental  one  beyond  sense  and 
when  it  came  to  seek  a  justification  of  its  doctrines  it  had  no  alterna- 
tive to  the  use  of  the  Greek  Organon  of  "  knowledge,"  and  in  using 
the  Aristotelian  Logic  it  naturally  made  a  formal  science  of  it.  The 
scholastic  period,  therefore,  developed  Logic  as  a  formal  science  to  its 
highest  degree  of  perfection.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  Greek  dis- 
trusted sense  for  one  reason  and  Christianity  distrusted  it  for  another. 
The  Greek  considered  it  incapable  of  determining  the  truth  about  the 
physical  world  and  the  Christian  distrusted  it  because  it  gave  no  in- 
formation about  his  spiritual  world  that  transcended  all  "  knowledge" 
and  was  an  object  of  faith.  Both,  however,  accepted  supersensible 
sources  of  belief,  the  Greek  making  it  reason  which  gave  a  supersen- 
sible physical  world  and  the  Christian  making  it  at  first,  and  perhaps 
always,  faith,  giving  both  a  supersensible  and  a  superphysical  world, 
or  what  may  be  called  a  supersensible  spiritual  world.  In  time,  how- 
ever, when  he  felt  obliged  to  make  his  peace  with  philosophy,  he 
accepted  the  criterion  of  reason  in  the  justification  of  his  faith  and  so 
was  obliged  to  utilize  the  Aristotelian  Logic  as  his  method,  and  hav- 
ing disregarded  the  study  of  facts  he  could  only  attempt  to  deduce  his 
doctrines  from  existing  and  accepted  conceptions  whose  origin  he  did 
not  investigate. 

It  was  the  influence  of  Kant's  Critique  that  converted  the  concep- 
tion of  Logic  back  again  into  that  of  Epistemology.  It  is  clear  that 
he  had  embodied  many  of  the  scholastic  ideas  in  his  conception  of 
Logic,  especially  as  observable  in  the  outlines  of  it  taken  from  his 
lectures.  But  as  he  developed  no  elaborate  system  of  formal  Logic 
the  conceptions  of  the  Critique  overshadowed  what  might  have  other- 


102  THE  PROBLEMS  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

wise  been  a  distinction  between  the  problems  of  "knowledge"  in 
their  widest  import  and  the  narrower  field  of  formal  Logic  or  ratio- 
cinative  processes.  The  consequence  has  been  that  German  treatises 
of  Logic  simply  cover  the  whole  province  of  the  theory  of  "  knowl- 
edge," and  reasoning  is  a  section  of  it  which  does  not  always  receive 
any  technical  name,  except  as  that  of  Logic  is  appropriated  for  it  in 
obedience  to  a  traditional  conception  of  it  much  narrower  than  the 
wider  import  determining  the  province  of  Epistemology.  I  cannot 
but  think  this  a  confusing  tendency,  because,  however  we  may  ulti- 
mately find  that  the  psychological  process  in  reasoning  is  the  same  as 
in  Apprehension  and  Cognition,  the  content  of  "  knowledge  "  is  so 
different  in  various  cases,  so  complex  in  some  as  compared  with  others, 
that  this  difference  of  matter  has  to  be  taken  as  the  basis  of  distinctions 
which  cannot  be  drawn  in  processes.  Epistemology  deals  as  much 
with  the  primary  psychological  activities  as  with  the  secondary  and 
ratiocinative,  that  is,  with  what  are  usually  called  the  simple  as  well 
as  the  complex,  and  whether  we  regard  this  simplicity  and  complexity 
as  subjective  or  objective  it  is  certain  that  the  content  of  "  knowledge  " 
is  often  more  complex  in  certain  instances  than  others  and  that  this 
distinction  of  simplicity  and  complexity  of  content  gives  rise  to  names 
for  different  sciences  or  supposed  processes  for  dealing  with  the  prob- 
lems so  defined.  Consequently,  when  we  have  the  term  Epistemology 
as  a -general  name  for  the  science  of  "  knowledge  "  at  large,  it  would 
be  better  to  retain  that  of  Logic  for  the  particular  and  quite  large  field 
of  ratiocination,  considered  as  the  combination  of  a  process  with  cer- 
tain complex  data  of  thought,  which  has  its  own  peculiar  laws  and 
difficulties,  though  all  the  while  treating  it  as  a  department  of  the 
general  subject.  The  special  reason  for  this  separation  of  the  questions 
is  the  fact  that  the  criteria  of  "  knowledge"  in  reasoning  are  quite  dif- 
ferent, in  so  far  as  they  are  objective,  from  those  in  the  so  called  primary 
processes  of  "  knowledge."  Now  as  reasoning  is  not  the  primary 
process  in  the  origin  of  material  "  knowledge  "  it  must  be  treated  as  a 
formal  process  of  some  kind  and  the  science  limited  to  it  must  be  con- 
sidered a  formal  science.  This  is  the  general  conception  which  I 
mean  to  take  of  it.  It  is  the  most  general  conception  of  English 
thinkers  and,  of  course,  has  its  origin  in  the  adoption  of  the  scholastic 
conception  of  the  subject,  though  in  so  far  as  Kantian  philosophy  has 
infli"  ed  the  English  mind  we  see  a  corresponding  tendency  to  con- 
fuse t-  wider  questions  of  Epistemology  with  the  narrower  ones  of 
the  traditional  Logic  by  using  the  term  "  Logic"  and  discussing  under 
its  cover  problems  which  at  one  time  were  not  considered  as  "  logical  " 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  I  S3 

at  all.  I  should  have  no  objections  to  the  change  in  the  meaning  of 
the  term,  if  proper  definition  and  analysis  accompanied  it.  But  the 
necessary  distinction  of  problems,  as  suggested  by  the  distinction 
between  mediate  and  immediate  "  knowledge,"  in  my  opinion  neces- 
sitates a  corresponding  distinction  of  sciences,  even  if  one  is  made  a 
department  of  Epistemology.  On  this  account,  I  must  regard  Sir 
William  Hamilton  as  having  given  the  best  conception  of  Logic  in 
modern  times,  as  he  most  clearly  distinguishes  between  the  general 
problem  of  "  knowledge  "  and  the  ratiocinative  process,  assigning  the 
latter  no  function  in  material  truth.  I  am  willing  also  to  say,  at  the 
cost  of  challenging  the  contemptuous  spirit  with  which  Hamilton  is 
generally  treated  by  Kantians  generally,  that  Hamilton  has  produced 
the  most  thorough  analysis  of  the  whole  problem  of  ' '  knowledge  " 
and  Logic  since  Aristotle,  not  excepting  Thomas  Aquinas  and  the 
scholastic  philosophers  generally.  Kant  made  no  analysis  at  all.  He 
could  only  divide  everything  into  "  empirical  "  and  "  transcendental  " 
without  either  illustration  or  clear  exposition.  But  Hamilton  in  his 
notes  to  Reid  especially  has  analyzed  the  whole  field  of  "  knowledge" 
and  Logic  in  a  way  to  leave  little  more  to  be  done.  His  solution  of 
the  problem  is  another  matter.  I  have  no  estimate  to  make  of  that,  as 
I  am  not  concerned  with  either  its  correctness  or  incorrectness,  for  the 
reason  that  I  shall  not  complicate  the  theory  of  ' '  knowledge  "  which 
I  am  presenting  with  any  prejudices  that  exist  for  or  against  any  sy  item 
of  philosophy.  But  I  do  recognize  Hamilton's  conception  of  formal 
Logic  as  the  one  best  calculated  to  develop  the  real  criteria  of  truth 
outside  the  sphere  of  reasoning  which  has  always  been  the  essential 
characteristic  of  the  science  of  Logic.  The  various  problems  of  human 
thought  ought  not  to  be  jumbled  together  under  a  single  term  when  it 
is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  separate  aspects  of  them.  When 
we  are  limiting  our  consideration  to  some  common  characteristic  of  a 
number  of  problems  we  may  rightly  enough  employ  a  single  term  to 
cover  them.  But  when  it  is  necessary  to  subdivide  a  general  problem 
into  several  distinct  types  with  differential  characteristics  it  is  equally 
necessary  that  we  should  have  the  technical  terms  to  denote  the  specific 
field  of  investigation  and  not  to  confuse  terms  which  should  be  kept 
distinct.  It  is,  however,  wholly  a  matter  of  definition  and  this  gives 
considerable  liberty  to  the  investigator,  but  this  definition  is  a  neces- 
sity, if  he  does  not  wish  to  be  exposed  to  criticism  for  errors-  ''sing 
out  of  departures  from  current  and  traditional  uses  of  the  sam-  terms. 
A  definition  of  terms  and  the  consistent  application  of  them,  without 
implying  any  necessary  contradiction  with  doctrines  founded  on  differ- 


1 84  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ent  definitions,  entitles  any  man  to  any  liberty  he  may  wish  to  enjoy 
and  he  must  be  judged  by  the  internal  consistency  of  his  system,  inde- 
pendently of  the  question  of  propriety  in  the  alteration  of  current  and 
traditional  meanings  of  the  same  terms. 

These  considerations  and  the  development  of  Logic  after  Aristotle 
justify  me,  I  think,  in  defining  Logic  as  a  formal  science  of  ratiocination, 
as  the  best  way  to  assign  it  a  meaning  definite  enough  to  enforce  the 
distinction  which  must  be  maintained  between  intuitive  and  ratiocina- 
tive  objects  of  "  knowledge,"  and  so  to  technicalize,  so  to  speak,  that 
department  of  Epistemology  which  is  subordinate  to  the  primary  and 
ultimate  problems  of  "  knowledge."  The  importance  of  so  doing  will 
be  apparent  in  further  discussion. 

While  I  might,  therefore,  adopt  the  definition  of  Logic,  that  it  is  the 
science  of  the  formal  laws  of  thought,  as  those  do  who  treat  it  as  I 
have  here  conceived  it,  I  shall  describe  it  in  more  specific  terms  after 
admitting  that  this  definition  properly  indicates  its  object,  namely,  the 
determination  of  the  laws  and  conditions  under  which  correct  thinking 
is  possible.  But  this  definition  does  not  explicitly  indicate  the  function 
which  ratiocination  performs  in  the  problem  of  "  knowledge,"  and  it  is 
this  function  on  which  I  wish  to  lay  the  emphasis  of  present  consider- 
ation. Consequently  I  shall  describe  ratiocination,  thus  further  expli- 
cating its  usual  definition,  as  the  vehicular  agency  or  medium  for  the 
transmission  of  conviction,  not  for  the  origin  of  it ;  the  transmission 
of  certitude  in  deduction  and  of  probability  in  induction.  This,  I 
shall  maintain,  is  the  sole  function  of  ratiocination  in  the  problem  of 
"  knowledge,"  and  in  no  respect  can  it  be  treated  as  the  source  from 
which  any  real  content  in  "  knowledge"  is  derived.  I  have  explained 
earlier  that  there  are  two  distinct  meanings  attached  to  the  term 
"  knowledge,"  one  that  of  certitude  and  the  other  systematization  of 
content  in  "  experience."  Ratiocination  can  do  no  more  than  transfer 
conviction  from  one  content  to  another  which  does  not  evince  its  own 
acceptability  without  the  unification  effected  by  the  apperceptive  process 
at  the  basis  of  reasoning.  How  this  is  brought  about  will  be  indicated 
further  on.  All  that  I  wish  to  assume  now  is  the  fact  that  the  function 
of  ratiocination  is  the  transfer  of  conviction  and  nothing  more,  directly 
or  primarily  and  intentionally. 

This  contention  can  be  illustrated  and  proved  by  a  brief  examina- 
tion of  the  syllogism.  I  take  deduction  as  the  best  type  for  the  pur- 
pose. We  have  always  been  accustomed  to  hear  that  the  conclusion  is 
contained  in  the  premises.  Taking  this  as  the  true  representation, 
which  I  think  no  one  will  dispute,  it  will  be  apparent  that   the  accep- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  1 85 

tance  of  the  conclusion,  assuming  that  neither  formal  nor  material  falla- 
cies have  been  committed,  depends  wholly  upon  the  acceptance  of  the 
premises.  Fallacies  do  not  show  the  falsity  of  the  "  conclusion"  as  a 
proposition,  but  only  the  illegitimacy  of  the  process  of  inference.  Both 
of  these  statements  are  the  truisms  of  Logic.  But  as  it  is  the  truth  of 
the  proposition  in  the  conclusion  in  which  we  are  really  interested,  we 
forget  what  it  is  that  has  determined  it  for  us  in  the  act  of  drawing  it. 
It  is  the  accepted  truth  of  the  premises,  not  the  fact  of  inclusion.  This 
will  be  evident  by  stating  the  following  accepted  facts  in  Logic. 

If  the  premises  are  false  and  the  reasoning  correct  the  conclusion 
will  be  false.  If  the  premises  are  uncertain  and  the  reasoning  correct 
the  conclusion  will  be  uncertain.  If  I  know  nothing  about  the  premises 
and  the  reasoning  is  correct  I  shall  know  nothing  about  the  conclusion. 
If  the  premises  are  true  and  the  reasoning  is  correct  the  conclusion  will 
be  true.  In  all  cases  where  the  mental  attitude  toward  the  conclusion 
is  at  all  affected  by  the  ratiocination,  or  apparently  so  affected,  it  is 
wholly  dependent  on  the  premises,  and  consequently  upon  the  convic- 
tion felt  in  the  premises.  No  certitude  is  felt  in  the  conclusion  when  it 
is  not  felt  in  the  premises,  and  hence  the  conviction  felt  or  increased,  if 
in  the  conclusion,  is  simply  what  is  transferred  from  the  premises,  how- 
ever they  have  been  obtained.  No  new  "  knowledge,"  as  content,  is 
discovered,  but  only  a  relation  not  explicit  before,  while  the  conviction 
is  derived  from  convictions  already  existent. 

But  where  do  the  convictions  regarding  the  premises  arise  ?  Are 
they  also  ratiocinatively  determined?  The  answer  is  that  they  may  be 
in  particular  instances,  but  this  is  not  ultimately  the  case.  The  syllo- 
gism cannot  indefinitely  prove  its  premises.  Strictly  speaking  no  syl- 
logism can  prove  its  own  premises,  and  the  deductive  process  can  not 
be  carried  on  ad  infinitum  without  leaving  all  conclusions  in  entire 
suspense.  Consequently  if  we  ever  have  any  certain  conviction  regard- 
ing the  premises  ultimately,  it  must  be  derived  by  a  non-ratiocinative 
process.  The  ultimate  test  of  truth,  therefore,  lies  in  what  antedates 
reasoning,  which  cannot  originate,  but  only  derive  certitude  or  prob- 
ability. I  could  illustrate  the  same  facts  in  the  process  of  induction 
where  we  have  probability  as  the  result  instead  of  certitude.  But  the 
reader  can  do  this  for  himself  as  I  care  only  for  the  general  principle. 

A  comment  on  Mill's  theory  of  deduction  is  a  natural  corollary  of 
the  remark  above  that  all  conviction,  certitude  or  probability,  is  ulti- 
mately obtained  by  non-ratiocinative  functions  and  only  transferred  by 
these,  that  is,  antecedes  reasoning.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Mill 
depreciated  deduction  and  subordinated  it  entirely  to  induction,  main- 


l86  THE   PROBLEMS    OF,  PHILOSOPHY. 

taining  that  the  premises  of  deduction  were  derived  by  induction.  The 
fatality  of  this  for  any  certain  truth  whatever  by  ratiocinative  processes 
is  self  evident.  No  one  can  claim  any  certitude  for  the  inductive  process, 
and  if  it  supplies  the  premises  of  deduction  we  have  no  material  certi- 
tude to  start  with  and  can  obtain  none  in  the  end.  Besides  Mill  relied 
upon  deductive  reasoning  to  prove  his  case  !  The  contradiction  of  this 
with  his  system  is  apparent.  Of  course,  when  analyzed,  his  conception 
of  induction^ turns  out  to  be  more  than  a  ratiocinative  process,  and  in- 
cludes "  experience,"  observation,  etc.  He  ought  to  have  seen  that  any 
such  conception  forbade  its  comparison  with  deduction  which  definitely 
contained  nothing  more  than  ratiocination,  and  if  induction  is  to  be  con- 
trasted with  it  clearly  it  must  also  represent  nothing  more  than  that 
process  in  a  modified  form.  What  Mill  should  have  observed  is  the 
fact  that  non-ratiocinative  functions  antecede  and  condition  the  premises 
of  both  induction  and  deduction  in  the  last  analysis.  This  will  be 
alluded  to  again  probably  in  the  discussion  of  scientific  method.  All 
that  I  wish  to  enforce  at  present  is  the  fact  that  Mill's  position  when 
examined,  analyzed  and  developed  terminates  in  the  doctrine  here 
defended,  namely,  that  reasoning  is  not  the  origin  of  conviction  but  the 
transfer  of  it. 

But  how  is  this  affected  ?  What  are  the  conditions  of  this  trans- 
fer ?  The  simple  reply  to  this  question  is  that  all  ratiocination  is  based 
upon  the  principle  of  identity.  This  is  evinced  in  the  character  of  the 
middle  term.  The  principle  of  causality  never  determines  it.  Propo- 
sitions involving  the  conception  of  causality  may  constitute  at  least  a 
part  of  the  material  content  of  ratiocinative  argument,  but  the  princi- 
ple of  causality  does  not  serve  as  the  basis  upon  which  the  syllogistic 
process  is  founded.  It  is  noticeable  even  that  both  premises  cannot 
consist  of  causative  or  intensive  propositions  at  the  same  time.  At  least 
one  of  them  must  be  extensive,  so  as  to  insure  the  use  of  the  principle 
of  identity  in  the  middle  term.  This  identity,  under  certain  conditions, 
guarantees  the  transfer  of  the  conviction  felt  in  the  premises  to  the 
conclusion.  These  conditions  are  the  criteria  for  determining  it  when 
this  identity  applies  in  a  way  to  justify  the  conclusion.  Quantity  is 
this  test.  Identity  is  the  fundamental  condition  and  quantity  is  the 
test  of  the  extent  of  this  identity.  That  is,  the  quantification  of  terms 
in  some  definite  and  explicit  form  is  the  "  objective  "  test  of  the  iden- 
tity necessary  to  draw  the  conclusion,  if  I  may  use  the  term  "  objective  " 
in  the  Kantian  sense  of  "  true  for  others  "  as  well  as  for  the  subject. 
I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  distribution  of  terms.  But 
what  I  wish  more  especially  to  remark  about  it  is  its  necessity  and  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF  TRUTH.  1 87 

reason  for  it  in  the  determination  of  the  conclusion.  When  the  sub- 
ject or  reasoner  sees  the  identity  expressed  in  the  middle  term,  it  may 
not  be  necessary  to  consider  quantity,  but  when  we  wish  to  make  this 
inclusion  or  identity  clear  to  others  it  is  necessary  to  definitely  quantify 
our  terms.  This  is  shown  clearly  in  the  case  of  undistributed  middle, 
where  there  is  no  conclusive  evidence  that  the  minor  premise  is  in- 
cluded in  the  major  unless  the  major  exhausts  the  field  of  conception 
in  which  the  minor  must  be  found.  The  identity  may  be  there  and 
would  have  to  be  seen  by  the  person  to  be  converted,  but  the  only  secure 
test  of  the  identity  when  it  is  not  explicitly  perceived  is  that  quan- 
tification which  makes  it  impossible  that  both  propositions  should  be 
true  without  the  inclusion  of  the  minor  in  the  major.  The  distribution 
is  the  test  of  this,  and  insures  the  validity  of  the  inference,  other  things 
being  equal. 

The  manner  in  which  quantification  affects  the  question  is  apparent 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  extension  of  concepts  that  determines  their 
numerical  capacity.  A  term  or  concept  taken  intensively  is  abstract,  as 
the  intension  in  general  concepts  does  not  denote  the  whole  of  any  in- 
dividual to  which  the  term  applies,  but  only  the  conferential  or  com- 
mon property  or  quality.  But  the  extension  indicates  the  individual 
wholes  denoted  by  the  concept  and  when  this  is  explicitly  quantified  in 
definite  terms  we  know  that  the  predicate  is  affirmed  or  denied  of  every 
individual  in  the  class.  The  general  proposition  does  not  indicate 
explicitly  whether  we  are  referring  to  the  whole  or  a  large  part  of  the 
class  and  hence  there  is  no  criterion  as  to  our  definite  meaning  in  our 
statements  so  made.  Whether  the  inclusion  of  the  minor  premise 
can  be  assumed  is  not  made  clear  unless  the  major  is  explicitly  univer- 
sal, say  in  the  first  figure,  and  the  consequence  is  that  no  proof  is  pos- 
sible to  him  demanding  it.  Thus  if  I  say,  '  Religion  is  humanizing,' 
1  Government  is  useful,'  or  '  Pine  wood  is  good  for  lumber,'  I  use 
propositions  which  are  abstract  and  perhaps  general,  in  which  I  may 
be  thinking  of  a  certain  characteristic  of  ideal  religion  or  government 
and  of  pine  wood  as  a  substance  rather  than  their  concrete  forms,  and 
consequently  my  statement  does  not  explicitly  indicate  that  I  am  thinking 
of  the  individual  instances  as  wholes.  They  are  useless  for  ratiocina- 
tion since  they  give  rise  to  some  fallacy  of  accident.  The  only  way  to 
avoid  this  "  objectively  "  is  to  explicitly  quantify  our  terms  and  in  this 
way  we  definitely  construe  our  propositions  in  their  extension  and  con- 
cretely. The  limits  of  our  statement  are  definitely  assigned  in  so  far  as 
the  included  assertions  are  concerned  and  the  reasoning  becomes  pos- 
sible. The  identity  and  inclusion  are  explicitly  indicated  by  the  process. 


1 88  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  best  illustration  of  this  condition  of  reasoning,  whether  explicit 
or  implicit,  is  in  mathematics.  The  quality  or  inequality  existing  be- 
tween subject  and  predicate  is  always  indicated  in  mathematical  propo- 
sitions and  this  assures  reasoning  without  fallacy.  The  predicate  is 
explicitly  quantified  as  well  as  the  subject  and  the  consequence  is  that 
the  moods  and  figures  can  be  dismissed  from  view  in  the  reasoning. 
It  is  merely  a  question  of  quantitative  as  well  as  qualitative  identity 
between  terms,  and  when  this  is  definitely  indicated  we  have  in  math- 
ematics the  simplest  form  of  reasoning  and  one  in  which  the  expo- 
sure to  fallacy  is  the  least  possible.  It  is  in  this  respect  that  I  regard 
Hamilton's  doctrine  of  the  quantification  of  the  predicate  as  correct, 
and" as  the  necessary  consequence  of  recognizing  quantity  in  ratiocina- 
tion at  all.  I  do  not  regard  it  as  of  any  specially  practical  use,  but  as 
necessary  in  the  correct  theory  of  reasoning.  The  rules  for  the  syllo- 
gism have  been  developed  from  the  observation  of  what  was  necessary 
in  the  actual  use  of  language  and  the  most  frequent  forms  of  reason- 
ing. This  is  quite  apparent  in  Aristotle's  whole  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject. He  has  observed  that  universal  affirmative  propositions  could 
not  be  converted  simply  and  at  the  same  time  he  recognized  that  in 
reasoning  the  subject  in  one  case  at  least  had  to  be  distributed.  But  as 
he  did  not  detect  that  it  was  this  definite  quantification  that  determined 
the  right  of  inference  formally,  he  also  did  not  see  that  theoretically  the 
predicate  might  be  similarly  quantified  definitely.  Simply  because 
it  was  not  quantified  in  fact  in  some  propositions  he  did  not  dis- 
cover what  was  theoretically  correct  and  important.  Language  is  in- 
fluenced by  aesthetic  and  economic  considerations  as  well  as  logical, 
and  economizes  the  concessions  to  logic  all  it  can.  As  nearly  all  our 
ordinary  reasoning  is  done  in  the  first  figure  of  the  syllogism,  it  is 
not  necessary  practically  to  recognize  distribution  or  explicit  quantifi- 
cation in  all  our  terms,  as  it  is  not  needed  in  the  predicate  in  such 
cases.  Consequently,  economy  and  aesthetics,  that  is,  rhetorical  con- 
siderations, 4«i*Jk  to  the  omission  of  all  definite  and  explicit  quantifica- 
tion of  the  predicate.  Aristotle  did  not  see  this  and  hence,  as  he  was 
extracting  his  rules  from  practice  rather  than  discovering  the  reason 
for  the  rules,  he  failed  to  see  that  theoretically  the  quantification  of  the 
predicate  was  just  as  essential  as  that  of  the  subject.  Consequently  I 
^Hhink  that  Hamilton  exhibited  the  correct  conception  of  the  theory  of 
the  syllogism  when  seeking  to  indicate  the  criterion  of  its  "  objective  " 
forcefulness.  It  explained  in  his  doctrine  the  nature  of  mathemat- 
ical reasoning  and  shows  how  it  is  so  secure  against  fallacy  and  why  the 
ordinary  reasoning  of  every  day  conversation  is  exposed  to  difficulties 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  189 

by  the  variation  from  this  model,  and  exposes  the  liability  to  error 
precisely  in  proportion  to  that  variation. 

I  have  referred  to  this  quantification  of  the  predicate  for  two  reasons. 
The  first  is  that  it  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  admitting  the  princi- 
ple of  quantity  at  all  into  the  doctrine  of  the  syllogism.  The  second  is 
that  the  implication  of  both  mediate  and  immediate  processes  of 
reasoning  that  follows  from  the  doctrine  is  the  best  illustration  of  the 
function  which  quantification  has  in  ratiocination.  This  is  that  quantity 
is  the  securest  test  of  the  identity  so  necessary  as  a  condition  of  inference, 
as  is  proved  by  the  consequence  of  attempting  to  reason  with  four  terms. 
Definiteness  is  the  first  requisite  of  clear  ratiocination  and  quantity  se- 
cures this  characteristic  and,  if  it  be  assumed  to  be  unnecessary  in  sub- 
jective inference,  it  is  certainly  the  clearest  way  to  avoid  indefiniteness 
and  equivocation  in  "  objective  "  ratiocination,  as  the  actual  develop- 
ment of  language  shows.  The  combination  of  quantity  and  quality  in 
the  identity  has  the  effect  of  a  double  criterion  for  the  meaning  of  our 
propositions  and  their  relation  to  each  other  and  allows  no  excuse  for 
misunderstanding.  The  transfer  of  conviction  becomes  inevitable  in 
such  a  case.  The  general  identity  between  the  minor  and  major  terms 
might  be  admitted  without  the  quantification  expressing  or  necessitating 
inclusion,  but  there  would  be  no  evidence  without  this  quantification, 
explicit  or  implicit,  that  they  were  related  in  the  specific  characteristic 
which  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  syllogism  in  the  case  to  prove. 

This  view  of  the  value  and  function  of  definite  quantification  of  term 
and  its  relation  to  certitude  in  deductive  reasoning  is  reinforced  by  the 
failure  of  induction  to  achieve  this  result.  In  deduction  we  have  the 
conclusion  contained  in  the  premises,  so  that  quantitatively  we  remain 
within  the  area  of  our  conceptions.  But  in  induction  this  is  not  the 
case.  The  conclusion  extends  beyond  the  premises  and  gives  universals 
which  are  not  quantitatively  included  in  the  premises.  Either  our  mid- 
dle term  is  not  distributed  in  the  inductive  syllogism  or  the  minor  and 
major  terms  may  be  distributed  in  the  conclusion  when  not  distributed 
in  the  premises.  This  increase  of  quantity,  taken  with  the  fact  that 
objects  not  merely  mathematical,  that  is,  units  of  time  and  space,  are 
qualitatively  variable  with  a  numerical  increase  of  individuation,  shows 
with  what  suspense  of  certitude  we  have  to  draw  our  inductive  infer- 
ences. The  identity  expressed  by  the  premises  is  only  partial,  or  the 
absence  of  definite  quantification  of  terms  expressing  inclusion,  leaves 
the  identity  indefinitely  determined  and  so  the  conclusion  can  have  only 
that  probability  which  is  suggested  by  the  amount  of  evidence  involved 
and  that  is  indicated  by  the  numerical  extent  of  the  individuals  included 


190  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  the  data  of  the  premises,  a  fact  not  definitely  expressed  without  ex- 
plicit statement.  The  absence  of  the  quantification  that  effectually  in- 
sures certitude  in  deduction  simply  shows  what  function  is  performed 
by  that  condition,  while  induction  gets  its  character  solely  because  that 
quantification  is  absent  from  the  premises,  and  the  conclusion  appears 
not  to  be  "  proved"  because  the  quantification  there  is  expressed  when 
it  is  not  in  the  premises.  We  can  then  see  why  the  sceptic  will  often 
say  to  a  man  who  is  reasoning  inductively,  whether  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, without  explicitly  indicating  the  fact,  that  his  argument 
does  not  "prove"  his  assertion.  There  is  the  recognition  that  the 
conclusion  is  not  contained  quantitatively  in  the  premises  and  that  dis- 
qualifies "  proof."  If  the  defendant  could  retort  that  he  was  only 
arguing  inductively  the  objection,  that  the  case  was  not  "  proved," 
would  have  no  relevancy,  as  the  reply  should  be  inductive,  unless  the 
inductive  inference  made  at  first  was  contradicted  by  a  well  known  fact. 
I  have  alluded  to  "  subjective"  and  "  objective"  reasoning  in  the 
discussion  above  and  now  this  requires  some  explanation.  What  I 
wish  to  call  attention  to  is  a  double  function  performed  by  ratiocination. 
Some  might  call  it  two  different  processes,  but  it  may  as  well  be  called 
a  double  function.  I  express  this  by  the  distinction  between  inference 
and  proof  or  argument.  I  mean  that  inference  shall  express  the  dis- 
covery of  the  conclusion  from  the  premises  which  has  for  its  object  the 
enlightenment  of  the  subject.  Proof  or  argument  means  that  the  con- 
clusion is  known  or  announced  and  that  the  premises  must  be  found 
for  convincing  another  than  the  subject.  In  this  case  the  inference  or 
reasoning  subjectively  considered  must  be  done  by  the  person  or  sub- 
ject to  whom  the  proof  is  presented.  This  has  already  been  done  by 
the  person  who  presents  the  argument.  I  can  describe  them  as  pro- 
gressive and  regressive  reasoning,  according  as  the  conclusion  is  dis- 
covered from  the  premises  or  the  premises  discovered  for  proof  of  the 
conclusion.  In  the  latter  case  the  conviction  regarding  the  con- 
clusion is  not  transferred,  but  is  already  in  existence,  having  been 
transmitted  by  some  previous  reasoning  or  discovered  by  some  other 
process.  But  in  the  former  case  the  conviction  is  communicated  to 
another  subject,  this  subject  having  to  accept  the  reasoning  to  obtain 
conviction  when  it  does  not  evince  itself  by  the  mere  enunciation  of  the 
proposition  to  be  proved.  This  communication  of  conviction  from 
subject  to  subject  is  one  of  the  most  important  functions  of  ratiocina- 
tion. It  is,  in  fact,  the  chief  instrument  for  the  distribution  of 
"  knowledge"  and  assumes  that  it  has  already  been  discovered, 
whether  by  "  experience"  or  other  reasoning,  so  that  it  appears  to  be 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  191 

a  social  function  for  the  communication  of  truth  rather  than  the  dis- 
covery of  it  when  we  come  to  admit  that  ultimately  the  acquisition  of 
M  knowledge  "  is  non-ratiocinative.  The  process  of  reasoning  or  proof, 
as  the  communicator  of  conviction,  may  be  either  ad  hominem  or  ad 
rem.  In  either  case  its  function  is  to  establish  agreement  between 
individuals,  not  to  discover  "  knowledge"  as  content.  The  "percep- 
tion "  or  discovery  must  be  made  by  the  subject  in  all  instances.  The 
proof  by  ratiocination  is  only  a  substitute  for  force  or  the  struggle  for 
existence.  It  is  in  the  intellectual  world  what  private  contract  is  in 
the  political  and  represents  a  method  of  obtaining  voluntary  adjustment 
to  social  conditions  instead  of  mere  obedience  under  police  regulations. 
It  is  an  objective  unifier  of  consciousness  which  leads  to  an  automatic 
unifier  of  wills  in  civilization.  In  human  life  we  have  either  to  fight 
or  reason.  We  must  conquer  our  neighbors  either  by  force  or  by 
reason ;  that  is,  let  them  conquer  themselves  by  accepting  the  cogency 
of  an  argument.  Wherever  there  is  any  love  of  truth  this  latter  course 
is  possible,  but  where  the  desire  for  consistency  and  truth  does  not 
exist  there  can  be  only  a  conflict  of  wills  and  its  consequences.  Bar- 
barism and  civilization  are  the  two  things  between  which  we  have  to 
choose,  and  it  will  be  one  or  the  other  that  we  obtain,  according  to  our 
adoption  of  force  or  reason,  as  the  means  of  securing  the  coordination 
of  the  social  will. 

Now  quantity  is  the  criterion  of  what  we  can  make  effective  in  an 
argument.  We  cannot  argue  in  general  and  abstract  terms.  Our 
propositions  must  be  definite,  and  definiteness  can  be  enforced  only  by 
the  most  explicit  quantification  of  conceptions.  In  such  conditions 
scepticism  must  either  accept  or  deny  the  premises.  It  cannot  display 
indifference  to  the  truth  or  error  of  them  and  cry  non  sequitur  so 
easily,  but  must  define  its  demands  at  once  or  accept  at  least  the  pre- 
sumptions against  itself.  This  means  that  quantification  of  terms 
makes  the  issue  clear  and  establishes  the  limits  within  which  the  proof 
must  be  conducted.  But  while  it  is  the  measure  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  principle  of  identity  is  applied  and  the  indispensable  condition  to 
the  enforcement  of  the  conclusion  and  its  acceptance  by  others,  it  does 
not  originate  any  new  truth  nor  do  anything  else  except  transfer  the 
conviction  held  in  the  premises  to  the  conclusion  established  by  it  when 
that  conclusion  does  not  evince  its  own  truth.  The  results  of  the  dis- 
cussion may  be  summarized  as  follows  : 

(a)  Quantity  is  the  final  test  of  escape  from  formal  fallacy  in  rea- 
soning and  is  thus  a  negative  criterion  of  ratiocinative  truth  or  the  con- 
viction, certitude  or  probability,  transmitted  by  it. 


I92  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

{b)  Proof  or  regressive  ratiocination  is  not  a  criterion  of  truth  to 
the  subject  but  a  social  instrument  for  its  communication  or  the  trans- 
fer of  conviction  to  another  subject,  and  thus  becomes  merely  an 
agent  in  producing  consentaneous  consciousness  while  the  material 
truth  of  the  judgments  concerned  must  be  subject  to  some  other  final 
test. 

(c)  All  ratiocination  is  merely  a  means  for  transferring  conviction 
and  not  originating  it.  It  may  be  treated  as  an  important  criterion  of 
truth  in  this  respect,  but  not  in  any  other  sense.  The  conception  of 
it  as  a  determinant  of  truth  arises  from  its  function  to  displace  doubt 
in  regard  to  the  conclusion  involved,  but  it  does  not  prevent  scepticism 
of  the  premises  and  so  is  not  the  test  of  truth  that  the  theory  of 
"  knowledge"  requires. 

(d)  As  ratiocination  is  not  the  ultimate  criterion  of  truth  some 
antecedent  function  must  be  sought  to  determine  this.  Exclusive 
dependence  on  reasoning  tends  toward  dogmatism  and  authority,  and 
since  the  premises  are  always  formally  open  to  scepticism  and  the  ulti- 
mate test  must  be  non-ratiocinative,  the  one  fundamental  consideration 
in  the  whole  problem  of  "knowledge"  is  that  the  subject  cannot 
escape  personal  responsibility  for  seeing  the  truth  himself.  This 
is  apparent  even  in  ratiocination  when  it  is  properly  examined,  though 
the  fact  is  concealed  by  the  habit  of  accrediting  the  reasoner  with  the 
result  of  imparting  conviction.  Unless  the  subject  to  whom  the  rea- 
soning is  presented  "  sees"  the  relation  and  identity  involved  between 
premises  and  conclusion,  the  perception  of  truth  escapes  and  no  con- 
viction is  imparted.  Consequently  the  primary  test  of  truth  in  all 
cases  is  the  subject's  own  "  perception  "  of  it  and  not  the  external 
characteristics  and  methods  necessary  for  communicating  it  and  trans- 
mitting conviction. 

II.  Immediate  Consciousness. 
We  have  found  that  ratiocination  in  its  regressive  form  has  an 
"  objective  "  or  social  value  and  comes  to  be  recognized  as  the  main 
process  in  the  supposed  credentials  of  "  knowledge  "  because  of  the  im- 
portance of  its  use  in  the  con^fensus  of  opinion  which  is  often  taken 
for  "  knowledge."  But  the  analysis  of  the  process  subjectively  and 
the  fact  that  its  social  utility  concealed  the  primary  source  of  the  con- 
viction which  it  transmits  brought  us  to  the  conclusion  that  the  ulti- 
mate source  of  "  knowledge  "  was  non-ratiocinative  and  that  the  sub- 
ject could  not  escape  responsibility  for  personal  insight.  This  is 
simply  to  say  that  we  are  not  obliged  ultimately  to  answer  all  the  ques- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  1 93 

tions  that  the  sceptic  may  raise,  if  they  simply  repeat  his  doubt  about 
each  premise  assumed  to  answer  any  given  demand  for  proof.  The 
fact  that  the  syllogism  cannot  prove  its  own  premises,  that  ultimately 
we  have  to  determine  the  premises  by  a  non-ratiocinative  process, 
and  that  the  sceptic  so  far  accepts  "  perception  "  or  insight  as  to  admit 
the  cogency  of  the  reasoning  when  formal  objections  to  it  cannot  be 
presented,  are  proofs  that  ultimately  he  must  accept  that  criterion,  if 
criterion  it  be,  for  such  "  knowledge  "  as  is  given  in  that  way,  and  the 
existence  of  any  "  knowledge  "  at  all  is  a  presumption  for  its  possibility 
in  other  directions,  if  satisfactory  credentials  can  be  produced  to  show 
that  it  does  not  limit  itself  to  immediate  u  perception." 

I  have  taken  the  terms  "  immediate  consciousness"  to  denote  the 
general  class  of  non-ratiocinative  processes  in  the  determination  of 
"  knowledge."  They  have  variously  been  called  "  intuition,"  "  experi- 
ence," "immediate  perception,"  "  attuition,"  etc.  I  have  compre- 
hended what  is  intended  by  these  conceptions  in  the  term  Apprehen- 
sion. I  also  intend  to  include  in  the  acts  of  immediate  consciousness 
all  the  processes  of  Cognition  or  Synthetic  Apprehension.  I  have 
called  them  acts  of  Judgment,  but  regard  them  as  immediate  rather 
than  mediate  acts  of  mind.  I  do  not  include  the  acts  of  generalization 
or  universalization  of  judgments.  This  I  shall  consider  in  its  place. 
Here  I  am  treating  of  the  primary  acts  connected  with  and  possessing 
only  an  immediate  content  for  consciousness  not  anticipating  "  experi- 
ence "  in  the  future.  That  is  to  say,  I  am  trying  to  ascertain  the 
elementary  data  and  processes  which  determine  the  first  accepted 
"knowledge,"  and  if  possible  that  "knowledge"  which  is  proof 
against  scepticism  and  which  either  has  a  satisfactory  criterion  or  does 
not  require  it  for  assuring  its  validity.  I  shall  term  these  acts  in  gen- 
eral Immediate  Consciousness.  This  is  nothing  more  than  the  cogito 
ergo  sum  of  Descartes.  I  need  not  expand  it.  It  is  too  generally  ac- 
cepted as  the  ultimate  source  of  elementary  "  knowledge"  to  be  dis- 
cussed. But  I  shall  briefly  examine  its  subdivisions  as  I  have  indi- 
cated them. 

i.  Apprehension.  —  Apprehension  gives  us  the  simplest  datum  of 
"  knowledge."  Some  will  say  that  it  gives  us  no"  knowledge  "  at  all. 
But  this  is  a  mere  matter  of  definition.  If  "  knowledge"  invariably 
means  synthesis  or  synthetic  content,  I  should  at  once  agree  that 
apprehension  gives  no  "  knowledge."  But  while  we  are  always 
privileged  to  give  what  definition  we  please  to  our  terms,  we  cannot, 
on  the  basis  of  our  own  definitions,  condemn  systems  with  different 
definitions.      We  should  have  to  ignore  them  or  allow  them  as  much 


194  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

right  as  our  own,  if  consistently  developed.  Besides  the  history  of 
philosophy  shows  that  there  is  no  monopoly  of  the  conception  of 
*'  knowledge."  I  have  already  shown  that  one  of  its  fundamental 
ideas  is  certitude.  This  is  the  conception  of  it  as  applied  to  certain 
doctrines  which  scepticism  takes  of  it,  though  denying  the  possibility 
of  it  in  these  supposed  cases.  Such  are  the  existence  of  God,  of  the 
soul,  of  immortality,  of  the  nature  of  the  external  world,  etc.  Scep- 
ticism never  doubts  the  fact  of  synthesis,  but  the  validity  of  alleged 
realities  at  the  basis  of  phenomena  and  synthesis.  All  the  explanations 
in  the  world  of  synthesis  are  no  answer  to  scepticism,  but  simply 
evasions  of  the  issue.  Hence  when  we  pretend  to  refute  scepticism  we 
are  trying  to  vindicate  some  belief  or  certitude  as  to  fact  and  "  reality," 
so  that  we  cannot  evade  the  consideration  of  the  term  "  knowledge" 
as  expressive  of  certitude  in  our  reply  to  scepticism  and  agnosticism 
claiming  its  impossibility  in  certain  concrete  instances.  It  may  be 
true  that  the  term  is  also  used  in  certain  other  relations  to  express  syn- 
thesis, and  I  agree  that  it  is.  But  this  fact  is  a  reason  for  separating 
its  two  meanings  and  dealing  with  correspondingly  distinct  problems 
rather  than  ignoring  or  denying  one  of  the  two  historical  imports  of 
the  term. 

I  am  concerned,  therefore,  at  present  with  the  question  whether 
scepticism  can  apply  to  absolutely  all  phenomena  and  beliefs.  Is  there 
any  datum  that  can  serve  both  as  a  refutation  of  doubt  and  a  basis  for 
beliefs  which  scepticism  is  able  to  discredit,  at  least  until  they  can  give 
a  good  account  of  themselves?  The  simple  "  knowledge"  of  appre- 
hension is  an  answer  to  this  question.  The  simple  states  of  conscious- 
ness, the  apprehensions,  are  invulnerable  and  absolute  "knowledge,"  ■ 
if  that  expression  can  be  used.  There  is  no  way  to  raise  a  doubt 
about  them.  Their  relations  are  not  an  issue,  but  the  question  whether 
they  are  facts.  If  they  were  inferred  we  might  consider  a  doubt  about 
them,  but  they  are  not  inferences.  They  are  direct  data  of  mind,  facts 
or  phenomena  with  which  it  comes  into  immediate  contact,  so  to 
speak.  They  are  such  that  "  knowing"  is  "  having,"  and  no  analysis 
of  them  into  antecedent  and  itself  as  consequent  is  possible,  or  into  a 
state  and  its  implications.  It  may  be  true  that  in  all  adult  "  experience  " 
no  simple  state  appears  in  the  form  defined  without  concomitants,  but 
this  does  not  prevent  our  abstraction  of  the  contingent  elements  of  such 
a  complex  whole  and  indicating  the  irresolvable  element  of  it.  I  am 
simply  naming  the  datum  and  act  which  we  recognize  when  we  have 
abstracted  all  that  can  be  thought  as  an  associated  content  and  that  is 
commonly  supposed  to  be  an  adjunct  due  to  "  experience."     The  ap- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  195 

prehensions  are  nothing  more  than  the  result  of  eliminating  the  syn- 
thetic elements  contingently  associated  with  any  complex  conception  or 
state  of  consciousness  and  concentrating  attention  upon  that  primary 
fact  or  content  which  cannot  be  eliminated  without  annihilating  the 
consciousness  itself.  This  act  and  datum  I  treat  as  infallible,  if  that 
expression  can  be  adopted  without  being  misunderstood.  It  is  sum- 
marized, as  remarked  above,  in  the  cogito  ergo  sum  of  Descartes, 
which  is  simply  the  general  term  for  the  various  concrete  manifesta- 
tions indicated  in  sensation,  self -consciousness,  recognition,  etc.  The 
facts  of  consciousness  are  not  subject  to  the  court  of  scepticism.  We 
may  have  all  sorts  of  doubt  or  discussion  as  to  what  the  facts  of  con- 
sciousness are,  as  to  where  the  line  shall  be  drawn  between  what  are 
facts  and  what  are  not  facts  of  consciousness,  but  in  all  historical  forms 
of  scepticism  enough  has  been  admitted  as  fact  of  immediate  con- 
sciousness to  determine  the  limits  of  that  doctrine,  and  however  men 
have  quarreled  about  definitions  at  this  point,  they  have  agreed 
that  the  facts  of  consciousness  are  beyond  dispute,  though  the  limits 
of  such  facts  are  not  always  determined  at  the  same  point.  For  ex- 
ample, all  would  agree  that  sensation  is  a  fact  of  consciousness,  but 
not  all  would  agree  that  the  existence  of  an  external  "  reality"  corre- 
sponding to  it  was  a  fact  of  consciousness.  When  we  know  what  the 
testimony  of  consciousness  is,  it  has  to  be  accepted  as  final,  and  this 
qualifying  statement,  "when  we  know,"  does  not  imply  that  all  men- 
tal states  are  subject  to  such  an  hypothetical  qualification,  but  only  that 
the  limits  of  immediate  ' '  knowledge  "  are  not  always  clearly  defined 
in  the  history  of  opinion.  As  regards  its  own  states  the  view  has 
never  been  questioned.  The  dispute  has  been  whether  immediate 
"knowledge"  was  limited  to  subjective  "phenomena,"  and  none  at 
all  regarding  the  certitude  of  its  own  states  and  affections. 

In  thus  assigning  certitude  and  finality  to  the  facts  of  apprehension 
I  am  not  conditioning  its  validity  in  any  way  by  supposing  that  it 
applies  only  to  the  normal  and  sane  subject.  I  intend  that  it  shall  be 
true  of  the  insane  as  well  as  the  sane.  The  elementary  "  knowledge  " 
of  the  mind  must  be  as  acceptable  in  the  case  of  the  insane  as  the  sane. 
The  testimony  of  consciousness  has  to  be  accepted  everywhere  and  in 
all  conditions.  This  does  not  mean  that  all  which  claims  to  be  such 
testimony  must  be  accepted,  but  that  when  such  testimony  is  once 
defined  properly  it  is  the  final  court  of  belief.  Nor  does  it  mean  that 
any  statement  that  an  insane  person  makes  about  his  feelings  or  experi- 
ences is  to  be  accepted.  What  the  insane  person  actually  feels  or 
experiences  is,  to  any  one  else  than  himself,  a  matter  of  inductive 


196  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

investigation  and  not  of  immediate  certitude  to  any  one  but  himself. 
It  is  not  his  statements  about  himself  that  are  acceptable  or  final,  but 
only  his  actual  states  of  consciousness.  What  they  are  may  never  be 
known  by  any  one  but  himself.  The  same  is  true  of  the  sane.  It  is 
not  the  sanity  of  any  individual  that  guarantees  the  testimony  of  his 
consciousness,  but  the  fact  that  he  has  the  consciousness.  His  sanity 
protects  his  statements  about  it  and  nothing  more.  We  can  accept  the 
statements  of  the  normal  and  sane  man  more  readily,  but  we  know 
nothing  more  about  his  affections  than  we  do  of  the  insane.  In  all 
cases  the  subject  alone  is  the  direct  witness  of  his  experiences.  What 
any  one  else  than  the  subject  feels  or  directly  "  knows,"  whether  sane 
or  insane,  is  purely  a  matter  for  inductive  inference. 

It  may  be  contended  that  this  position  very  much  limits  the  area  of 
positive  and  certain  "  knowledge,"  and  I  shall  not  contest  the  supposi- 
tion, as  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  extend  our  assured  "knowledge" 
beyond  its  legitimate  boundaries.  All  that  I  am  concerned  with  is  the 
facts  of  the  case  and  these  assign  as  distinct  limits  to  scepticism  as  to 
dogmatism.  I  regard  universal  scepticism  as  impossible  as  universal 
dogmatism,  even  though  it  be  desirable.  I  do  not  regard  either  of 
them  as  desirable  and  I  think  that  scepticism,  when  it  is  defined  and 
rational,  is  quite  as  useful  in  civilization  as  belief.  But  it  is  itself 
defensible  only  when  it  can  admit  at  least  a  modicum  of  positive 
"  knowledge,"  which  it  must  do  to  accept  the  legitimacy  of  formal 
ratiocination  and  even  the  assertion  of  universal  doubt.  As  a  fact  the 
sceptic  has  usually  admitted  the  existence  of  positive  "  knowledge" 
within  the  limits  of  "  impressions,"  sensory  "  experience  "  and  imme- 
diate consciousness,  so  that  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  define  the  prob- 
lem in  any  but  the  sceptic's  own  terms  to  justify  the  functions  here 
assigned  to  apprehension.  The  amount  of  positive  "knowledge" 
obtained  by  it  may  be  very  small,  but  such  as  it  is  it  is  definitely 
assured,  and  a  fulcrum  is  secured  for  the  explanation  and  determina- 
tion of  all  complex  conceptions  involving  the  facts  of  apprehension  as 
their  basis.  Dogmatism  may  have  to  yield  as  much  as  scepticism  in 
the  end.  But  I  am  not  primarily  concerned  with  these  questions 
beyond  defining  the  elementary  phenomena  in  the  field  of  positive 
"knowledge"  so  far  as  its  non-synthetic  character  is  concerned. 
Whether  there  is  any  other  field  of  such  conviction  is  not  a  matter  of 
interest  at  present,  and  I  am  also  willing  to  say,  is  not  a  matter  of 
deduction  from  the  acceptance  of  this  primary  "  knowledge." 

There  must  be  no  misunderstanding  as  to  the  area  of  this  positive 
"  knowledge."     I   do  not  include  in  it  the   conceptions  of  external 


THE    CRITERIA    OF  TRUTH.  197 

objects  as  we  ordinarily  assume.  In  fact  such  conceptions  as  '  trees,' 
'  stones,'  '  horses,'  '  houses,'  and  much  more  such  as  '  substance,' 
'  God,'  '  cause,'  are  not  the  objects  of  apprehension.  The  '*  objects  " 
of  this  process  are  far  simpler.  They  are  the  facts  of  consciousness. 
These  are  all  that  can  be  apprehended.  These  are  the  first  data  of 
assured  "  knowledge."  I  do  not  say  that  they  are  the  only  things 
"known,"  but  they  are  the  only  things  properly  apprehended  in  the 
technical  sense  of  that  term  and  as  defined.  My  "knowledge,"  that 
is  assured  truth,  may  extend  far  beyond  my  mental  states,  but  we  do 
not  apprehend  anything  more,  as  that  is  technically  defined.  If  there 
are  any  functions  of  consciousness  which  can  present  other  assured 
truth  they  remain  still  to  be  discussed,  and  whether  also  they  are 
capable  of  delivering  such  "knowledge"  when  supposed  to  exist 
remains  to  be  determined.  But  apprehension  is  circumscribed  by  what 
we  call  the  facts  of  consciousness.  This  suffices  to  show  in  the  prob- 
lem of  epistemology  that  there  is  one  province  in  which  certitude  is 
possible,  in  which  one  fact  or  conception  implicated  in  the  term 
"  knowledge"  is  certified  and  placed  beyond  the  corrosive  solvent  of 
scepticism.  With  this  conclusion  I  may  turn  to  the  next  type  of 
immediate  "  knowledge." 

2.  Cognition.  —  I  come  now  to  treat  of  what  I  shall  call  the  syn- 
thetic processes  and  products  of  "  knowledge."  Apprehension  is  not 
synthetic.  It  is  a  simple  act  with  a  simple  object  of  consciousness. 
If  I  may  adopt  a  barbarous  expression  very  current  in  philosophy,  it 
is  identical  with  itself.  But  Cognition  is  complex  or  synthetic  in  that 
we  have  to  take  account  of  the  mental  state,  and  its  meaning  or  impli- 
cation, if  that  last  word  can  be  permitted.  We  begin  in  this  act  to 
recognize  relations  and  to  interpret  phenomena.  It  is  the  rise  of  judg- 
ment, in  fact  is  elementary  judgment,  as  a  previous  chapter  has  ex- 
plained. Also  as  explained  it  comprehends  three  types,  namely,  Per- 
ception, Conperception,  and  Apperception.  These  I  shall  treat  as  the 
elementary  and  immediate  judgments.  I  distinguish  them  from  what 
must  be  regarded  as  mediate  judgments.  The  immediate  judgments 
of  which  I  here  speak  are  a  combination  of  presentation  or  apprehen- 
sion and  interpretation  or  the  application  of  a  category.  These  also  I 
regard  as  giving  certain  "  knowledge  "  beyond  the  attack  of  scepticism. 

But  certitude  is  not  the  only  fact  involved  in  cognition.  Appre- 
hension gives  certitude  as  its  main  characteristic.  It  gives  nothing 
else,  however,  as  a  mark  of  "  knowledge."  But  cognition  or  judg- 
ment adds  to  this  mark  what  I  shall  call  "  objectivity,"  externality,  or 
an  object  of  consciousness  other  than  the  presentation  itself  on  which 


198  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

attention  may  be  concentrated.  That  is  to  say  the  meaning  of  a  given 
presentation  or  fact  of  consciousness  is  asserted  and  this  meaning  im- 
plies the  existence  of  a  correlate  to  the  fact  given  by  apprehension. 
In  sensation  it  is  the  external  "  reality."  In  mentation  it  is  the  sub- 
ject. In  "  phenomena"  it  is  the  cause,  or  antecedent.  In  a  relative 
it  is  the  correlative  fact.  The  meaning  points  to  some  fact  beyond 
the  present  fact.  Cognition  interprets  as  well  as  apprehends.  It  as- 
sociates another  content  with  the  present  fact,  or  involves  synthesis 
which  is  this  associative  act.  It  is  the  process  which  gives  "  knowl- 
edge "  its  transsubjective  implication,  its  transphenomenal  aspect,  its 
import  as  expressed  in  the  idea  that  "  knowing  "  is  more  than  "  being  " 
or  "having  "a  state  of  consciousness.  The  fundamental  question  is 
whether  consciousness  does  thus  "  transcend  "  itself.  Can  it  "  know  " 
anything  but  its  own  states  ? 

In  regard  to  the  assumed  possibility  that  consciousness  "tran- 
scends" itself  in  "knowledge"  of  the  interpreting  or  synthetic  sort, 
as  conceived  by  the  realist,  according  to  the  idealist's  notion  of  that 
doctrine,  there  is  a  curious  illusion  in  the  minds  of  most  if  not  all 
idealists.  This  class  of  philosophers  is  perpetually  reiterating  state- 
ments which  it  supposes  a  realist  cannot  admit  without  intellectual 
suicide.  This  statement  is  variously  expressed.  "  We  cannot  assert 
any  universe  except  that  which  is  an  object  of  knowledge."  "  We 
cannot  know  anything  except  the  object  of  consciousness."  "  We 
cannot  know  anything  except  in  relation  to  consciousness."  "  Esse 
is  per  dpi"  etc. 

Now  these  statements,  so  far  from  being  important  and  conclusive 
of  a  particular  system  of  philosophy,  are  so  equivocal  that  nothing  can 
be  inferred  from  then,  without  analysis  and  definition.  They  may  be 
treated  as  simple  truisms,  tautological  propositions,  in  which  subject 
and  predicate  are  absolutely  identical,  in  which  case  no  philosophy 
whatever  can  be  founded  upon  them.  Synthetic  propositions  are 
the  condition  of  implied  truth.  If  "  knowledge  "  be  defined  as  the 
present  state  of  the  mind,  as  a  functional  activity  limited  to  the  space 
and  time  of  the  moment  in  which  as  an  individual  presentation 
occurs,  that  is  to  say,  if  "knowledge"  means  that  the  "knowing" 
act  and  the  thing  "  known"  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  then  it  is 
clear  enough  that  we  cannot  assert  the  existence  of  anything  but  what 
is  an  "  object  "  of  consciousness.  But  this  "  object  "  becomes  the  men- 
tal state  itself  and  the  existence  of  anything  other  than  it,  "  outside" 
consciousness,  not  "  in  "  consciousness,  cannot  be  "  known."  I  am  not 
here  using  the  term  in  any  necessary  sense  of  certitude,  but  of  compass 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  199 

or  content.  But  if  it  be  of  the  very  nature  of  "  knowledge  "  as  syn- 
thetic, as  interpretative,  as  assigning  meaning  and  necessary  implica- 
tion, that  is,  if  "knowing"  means  that  the  object  of  consciousness 
may  be  something  other  than  the  state  "knowing,"  then  there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  the  subject  from  asserting  the  existence  of  a 
"  reality"  whose  existence  does  not  depend  on  the  act  "  knowing"  it, 
though  the  assertion  of  this  existence  does  depend  on  the  "  knowing." 
It  is  simply  a  question  whether  you  shall  define  the  "  knowledge  "  in 
solipsistic  terms,  as  the  relativist  of  the  Sophistic  type  does,  or  in  terms 
of  those  who  make  judgment  a  process  referring  to  facts  other  than 
the  act  effecting  the  reference.  Consciousness  is  the  ratio  cognoscendi, 
not  the  ratio  essendi  of  "  reality,"  in  the  minds  of  all  but  the  solip- 
sist  and  the  sceptic  of  a  certain  type.  The  consequence  is  that  the 
propositions  which  I  have  mentioned  have  only  two  possible  interpre- 
tations. One  is  that  the  existence  of  "  reality  "  is  convertible  with  the 
mental  act  which  cognizes  it,  and  the  other  is  that  this  existence  is  not 
convertible  by  the  mental  state  but  only  evidenced  by  it.  The  former 
conception  limits  "  reality  "  to  states  of  consciousness  in  the  individual 
having  them,  and  so  limits  u  knowledge  "  to  these.  The  latter  admits 
that  something  may  "transcend"  consciousness  as  an  object  and  so  is 
neither  created  by  the  act  of  "  knowing"  nor  identical  with  it  in  time 
and  space.  As  I  have  already  pointed  out  the  idealist  and  realist 
are  at  one  when  we  eliminate  solipsism  from  the  interpretation  of 
the  idealist's  position,  their  further  differences  being  on  the  nature  of 
this  "  reality"  other  that  the  state  "  knowing  "  it  rather  than  the  exist- 
ence of  it. 

Now  in  apprehension  or  presentation  "knowing"  and  "  being"  are 
one  and  the  same  thing.  The  "object"  and  the  act  "knowing"  it 
are  the  same.  If  we  take  this  conception  of  the  phenomenon  of 
"  knowledge  "  as  the  one  to  define  our  term,  the  "  universe  of  knowl- 
edge "  and  the  "universe  of  reality"  are  identical;  that  is,  one  and 
the  same  thing.  No  distinction  of  time  and  space  can  be  made  be- 
tween them.  This  is  the  position  of  the  scepticism  in  Sophistic  spec- 
ulation and  the  later  Academy.  But  subsequent  philosophy  has  altered 
its  conception  of  the  term  "  knowledge"  without  altering  the  phrase- 
ology which  limited  what  is  assertible  to  the  subjective  mental  acts. 
It  has  come  to  make  "  knowledge  "  convertible  with  judgment  rather 
than  presentation  and  hence  includes  in  it  assertibility  of  something 
which  is  not  the  mental  act  itself,  and  yet  tries  to  discredit  realistic 
conceptions  by  repeating  assertions  which  originated  in  a  solipsistic 
doctrine,  and  get  all  their  contradiction  with  realistic  ideas  from  that 


200  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

origin.  But  as  we  have  come  to  assume  that  an  essential  element  of 
"  knowledge,"  at  least  of  the  synthetic  type,  vs.  judgment  which  is  cer- 
tainly not  a  presentation,  but  a  positing  assertory  act  of  mind,  we  have 
a  notion  that  implies  the  existence,  or  a  belief  in  the  existence,  of 
something  other  than  the  state  which  is  necessary  for  the  "  knowing." 
This  is  only  to  say  that  we  have  extended  the  meaning  of  the  term  to 
mean  more  in  certain  conditions  than  the  presentation  which  was  the 
solipsist's  and  sceptic's  original  limitation  of  the  term.  Consequently 
the  opposition  between  the  idealist  and  the  realist,  as  I  have  already 
shown  above,  is  nullified. 

There  is  another  way  to  establish  the  same  conclusion.  When  any 
realist  or  simple-minded  man  supposes  or  asserts  that  consciousness 
"transcends"  itself  in  the  act  of  "knowledge,"  "synthetic  knowl- 
edge," the  idealist  who  wants  us  to  believe  that  he  is  putting  a  very 
profound  question  will  ask  him,  '  How  do  you  know  this?'  If  the 
answer  is  not  clear  and  conclusive  the  questioner  thinks  that  his  case  is 
won.  But  the  fact  is  that  this  question  should  never  be  answered  at 
all  until  its  meaning  is  explained.  It  is  not  so  clear  a  query  as  is  usu- 
ally supposed.  It  is  often  put  in  the  spirit  of  the  sceptic,  who  assumes 
that  unless  you  can  show  him  '  hozv  you  know '  a  thing  you  have  no 
right  to  your  belief  in  the  fact  asserted  or  supposed.  Now  this  ques- 
tion is  equivocal.  It  may  mean  that  the  interrogator  is  asking  for 
explanation,  or  that  he  is  asking  for  proof.  The  former  may  be  rational 
and  the  latter  may  not.  But  its  form  covers  the  irrational  question 
by  the  rational.  If  I  am  asking  the  explanatory  question  I  am  seeking 
the  explanation  of  an  admitted  fact,  the  process  or  cause  which  will 
explain  the  fact.  Now  all  that  the  man  means  who  supposes  that  cog- 
nitive "knowledge"  is  transsubjective,  is  that  it  is  a  fact  that  con- 
sciousness so  transcends  itself  and  he  does  not  care,  so  far  as  the 
validity  of  the  fact  is  concerned,  whether  it  is  explicable  or  not.  The 
failure  to  explain  it  will  not  discredit  the  fact.  It  simply  indicates  that 
it  is  not  so  intelligible  as  may  be  desired,  but  it  is  not  questioned  as  a 
fact  by  the  failure  to  assign  its  cause.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  ques- 
tion means  that  we  must  have  proof,  that  the  fact  of  the  alleged  trans- 
cendency of  consciousness  in  cognitive  judgment  must  be  proved,  we 
may  answer  that  it  cannot  be  proved,  if  we  are  so  inclined.  If  cogni- 
tive judgment  be  defined  as  an  immediate  act  of  mind  no  proof  is  pos- 
sible. It  is  only  mediate  "  knowledge"  that  is  probative.  It  is  im- 
possible to  "prove"  immediate  "  knowledge,"  except  that  "proof" 
be  convertible  with  the  "  experience,"  intuition,  insight,  personal  re- 
alization in  consciousness,  of  the  subject   himself.     But  ratiocinative 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  201 

proof  cannot  be  applied  to  what  is  definitely  immediate.  We  may  be 
wrong  in  so  limiting  cognition  to  immediate  "  knowledge,"  but  when 
we  expressly  do  so,  the  sceptic  cannot  ask  us  for  ratiocinative  proof  of 
it,  or  of  the  object  which  is  said  to  be  given  by  it.  The  fact  is  that 
the  sceptic's  question  is  a  survival  either  of  the  solipsistic  position  or 
of  hypothetical  Realism.  Where  "  reality  "  was  made  an  inference 
from  presentations  it  was  legitimate  enough  to  ask  for  the  proof  of  its 
existence,  as  all  inference,  or  perhaps  rather  all  assertion  that  is  in  re- 
ality inference,  requires  proof,  or  involves  the  fairness  of  the  demand 
for  it.  But  when  both  idealist  and  realist  assume  that  cognitive 
M  knowledge"  or  judgment  of  this  early  synthetic  type,  as  I  have  de- 
fined it,  is  immediate,  the  demand  for  "proof"  of  the  ratiocinative 
sort  is  not  rational.  But  the  rationality  of  the  explanatory  question 
conceals  this  characteristic  and  only  an  analysis  of  the  question  will 
reveal  the  fact.  Further,  also,  it  is  noticeable  that  the  question  is 
often  asked  with  the  implied  assertion  that  the  absence  of  the  proof 
demanded  is  equivalent  to  the  non-validity  of  the  assumed  objective 
"  knowledge."  That  is,  the  want  of  proof  discredits  the  claim,  while 
the  existence  of  proof  determines  its  validity.  This  assumption  can 
be  made  only  in  that  period  of  intellectual  development  when  ratiocina- 
tion is  supposed  to  be  the  criterion  of  truth.  But  I  have  shown  here 
that  ratiocination  only  transmits  certitude  and  validity  and  does  not 
originate  it,  and  consequently  the  ultimate  criterion  of  "  knowledge," 
if  criterion  it  be,  is  some  immediate  mental  process,  itself  incapable  of 
syllogistic  proof.  The  sceptic,  therefore,  cannot  ask  the  question  at 
all,  except  as  an  explanatory  query,  unless  he  maintains  that  the  belief 
in  objective  "reality"  is  mediate  instead  of  immediate.  But,  as  pre- 
viously explained,  the  demand  for  the  cause  or  process  which  explains 
how  we  "  know"  the  objective  admits  the  fact,  and  the  fact  of  it  is  all 
that  the  realist  requires  for  the  justification  of  his  view  that  conscious- 
ness can  assert  the  existence  of  events  or  "  realities  "  beyond  the  limits 
in  space  and  time  of  the  subject,  or  of  the  particular  mental  state  which 
makes  the  affirmation. 

But  the  sceptic  may  put  another  question  which  appears  to  continue 
the  doubt  about  the  validity  of  judgments  regarding  an  external  "  re- 
ality." He  may  ask  the  assertor  :  '  What  is  this  reality  ? '  Suppose 
I  assert  that  consciousness  can  "know"  something  beyond  its  own 
states,  the  doubter  may  ask  me,  '  What  is  it  ? '  This  is  often  an  equiv- 
alent to  the  demand  for  "  proof,"  which  I  have  already  discussed. 
But  its  real  import  is  a  demand  to  give  some  account  of  the  "  nature  " 
of  the  "  reality  "  affirmed.     Now  there  are  only  two  ways  in  which  we 


202  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

can  tell  '  what '  a  thing  is.  We  can  name  the  class  to  which  it  belongs, 
that  is,  define  it  in  regard  to  its  qualities  as,a  member  of  a  genus,  or 
we  can  describe  it  in  terms  of  what  it  does.  Usually  the  demand  means- 
the  former,  and  hence  if  made  by  the  philosopher  is  understood  to  be 
a  requirement  for  a  definition  of  the  "  reality  "  in  terms  of  its  confer- 
entia  and  differentia,  its  distinctive  and  its  generic  properties.  It  is- 
quite  possible  that  such  a  definition  of  the  ultimate  "  reality  "  of  cog- 
nition cannot  be  given.  My  own  position  is  that  it  cannot  be  given. 
As  I  have  already  shown  in  a  previous  chapter  Apperception  is  not  the 
process  for  determining  either  the  fact  or  the  "nature"  of  ultimate 
"  reality,"  but  that  Perception  and  Conperception  are  the  means  for 
this,  that  the  ultimate  "  nature  "  of  anything  must  be  expressed  in  terms, 
of  the  principle  of  Causality  and  not  of  Identity.  But  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  insist  upon  the  truth  of  this  doctrine  in  order  to  support  the 
contention  here.  The  primary  question  of  Cognition  as  I  am  here  de- 
fending it,  as  a  source  of  immediate  "knowledge"  of  an  objective 
"  reality,"  is  not  '  what '  a  thing  is,  but  '  whether '  it  is  odier  than  sub- 
jective mental  states.  All  that  is  here  maintained  is  &m  Cognition, 
in  Perception  and  Conperception  assert  that  an  objective  "  reality" 
exists,  not  what  it  is  in  any  such  terms  of  explicitness  as  are  demanded 
by  the  question.  The  capacity  for  giving  a  definition  of  its  primary 
deliverances  is  not  necessary  to  its  validity,  but  may  be  useful  in  prob- 
lems of  intelligibility  or  communication.  In  other  words,  a  similar 
answer  can  be  given  to  this  question  as  was  given  to  the  previous  one 
discussed.  The  inability  to  tell  "  what  "  external  "  reality  "  is  in  terms- 
of  principle  of  Identity  does  not  discredit  the  fact  of  it  but  in  reality 
assumes  it  to  be  a  fact  and  demands  further  "  knowledge  "  regarding  it 
rather  than  justification  for  the  assertion,  when  it  is  the  simple  reflex 
of  "  experience"  itself,  or  the  necessary  interpretation  of  a  presenta- 
tion when  that  is  conceived  as  a  related  event.  Ability  to  define  "  re- 
ality "  does  not  justify  the  belief  in  it,  but  makes  the  assertion  of  it  intel- 
ligible to  others  in  terms  of  their  "experience."  The  result  here  is 
analogous  to  that  in  ratiocination  ;  definition  only  transmits  intelligence, 
but  does  not  verify  or  justify  the  judgment  originally. 

It  is  often  certain  metaphysical  interests  that  prompt  to  the  ques- 
tion. The  idealist  who  thinks  that  his  theory  must  be  sustained  in 
order  to  have  a  foothold  against  Materialism  and  who  assumes  unwar- 
rantably that  Realism  leads  to  this  Materialism  raises  the  question  as 
to  what  objective  "  reality  "  is,  that  he  may  avail  himself  of  all  the 
sceptical  insinuations  suggested  by  the  failure  to  answer  the  query  • 
in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  him,  that  he  may  make  the  existence  of 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  203 

matter  an  object  of  doubt  or  contention.  But  I  am  not  at  all  con- 
cerned with  this  controversy  one  way  or  the  other.  We  may  make 
objective  "  reality"  anything  we  please,  whether  it  suits  either  idealist 
or  materialist.  All  that  I  am  contending  for  is  that  cognition  in  Percep- 
tion and  Conperception  transcends  the  subjective  state,  which  they  are 
as  states  of  consciousness,  as  functions  of  the  subject,  and  that  the  "  re- 
ality "  which  they  attest  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  mental  state,  even 
if  it  is  like  the  mental  state  making  the  assertion.  Whether  the  objective 
"  reality  "  posited  by  judgment  is  like  or  unlike,  similar  or  diverse,  from 
the  mental  state  making  the  assertion  is  wholly  indifferent  to  the  issue 
with  which  I  am  concerned.  This  is  the  mere  question  of  fact  whether 
consciousness  can  "  know  "  anything  but  itself,  the  actions  and  reactions 
of  the  subject.     Let  me  summarize  the  arguments  for  this  fact. 

(a)  As  I  have  already  indicated  the  idealist  admits  all  that  is  con- 
tended for  when  he  refuses  to  accept  solipsism  as  the  proper  interpre- 
tation and  conception  of  his  doctrine.  Solipsistic  phenomenalism 
denies  the  possibility  of  "  knowing"  anything  but  the  subject's  own 
mental  states.  But  I  have  shown  that  idealism  and  realism  are  agreed 
on  the  point  that  there  is  something  else  "  known"  than  one's  own 
states,  that  a  "  social  "  consciousness  at  least  is  admitted  which  means 
that  there  are  other  individual  conciousnesses  besides  our  own.  This 
is  all  that  is  necessary  to  sustain  the  contention  here  advanced.  The 
argument,  however,  is  only  ad  hominem. 

(b)  Phenomenalism,  which  assumes  the  law  of  coexistence  and  se- 
quence in  events,  supposes  this  objectivity  quite  as  distinctly  as  the 
believer  in  causality.  The  phenomenalist  does  not  think  that  events  are 
self-sufficient  or  that  they  stand  alone.  He  endeavors  to  make  them 
intelligible  by  seeking  for  their  antecedents  or  coexistent  events  as- 
sumed to  "  explain  "  them.  The  externality  of  one  event  to  another  is 
a  fundamental  assumption  of  its  theory  and  it  distinguishes  as  definitely 
between  "  external  reality  "  and  the  states  of  consciousness  as  between 
the  different  mental  states.  Besides  the  phenomenalist  is  as  opposed 
to  solipsism  as  any  other  philosopher  and  accepts  an  external  "  reality." 
This  argument,  again,  is  only  ad  hominem. 

(c)  The  implication  of  the  term  "  phenomenon  "  itself  is  that  there 
is  something  besides  this  in  existence.  It  is  a  purely  relative  term  like 
"  father,"  or  "  slave."  It  has  no  meaning  except  in  reference  to  that 
which  phenomenalizes.  There  are  just  two  pertinent  meanings  to  the 
term.  The  first  is  that  of  "  appearance,"  which  is  the  usual  definition 
of  it  as  given  by  the  interpreters  of  Kant.  Nothing  is  clearer  than  the 
fact  that  appearance  is  purely  a  relative  term   and  implies  that   some- 


204  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tiling  "  appears."  We  may  not  be  able  to  define  this  "  something" 
in  terms  of  apperception  or  class  kind  and  it  is  not  necessary,  as  I  have 
shown,  to  do  so  in  order  to  accept  the  fact  of  it,  because  it  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality  that  determines  the  existence  of  this  something. 
But  "phenomenon"  and  "appearance"  have  no  intelligible  import 
unless  they  imply  this  correlate  which  indicates  that  we  must  "  tran- 
scend "  "  phenomena"  in  our  "  knowledge."  Of  course,  if  "knowl- 
edge "  be  made  synonymous  with  "  having  "  sensations  or  mental  states 
and  nothing  more  it  will  be  true  that  we  "know"  phenomena  and 
nothing  more.  But  if  "  knowledge"  mean  conviction  that  something 
else  is  a  certain  or  probable  fact,  a  rational  object  of  belief  or  certitude, 
then  we  may  be  said  to  ' '  know"  more  than  phenomena  in  the  neces- 
sity of  accepting  the  correlate  as  a  necessary  object  of  consciousness 
although  this  object  cannot  be  a  presentation. 

The  second  pertinent  meaning  of  the  term  "  phenomenon "  will 
lead  to  the  same  conclusion.  It  is  that  of  "event"  or  "change." 
The  first  meaning  has  generally  had  a  flavor  of  subjective  import, 
because  it  is  the  conception  usually  adopted  by  the  idealist  and  from 
the  general  nature  of  his  system  the  suggestion  is  that  of  mental  states. 
But  the  meaning  "  change  "  or  "  event"  is  somewhat  different.  It  is 
adopted  in  deference  to  the  very  idea  of  an  external  "  reality."  It 
means  to  describe  the  transient  facts  of  both  internal  and  external  exist- 
ence and  hence  assumes  the  external  in  its  very  primary  import. 
Besides  "  change  "  is  also  a  relative  term  implying  that  "  something" 
changes.  "  Change  "  attaches  itself  to  something  as  a  mode  of  it  and 
cannot  hang  in  the  air,  so  to  speak,  as  a  self-subsistent  fact.  It  always 
has  a  correlate,  so  that  we  can  be  said  to  "  know  "  more  than  "  change  " 
when  that  is  "  known"  at  all,  assuming  of  course  that  import  of  the 
term  "  know  "  which  I  have  explained.     That  is  all  that  is  necessary. 

I  must  emphasize,  however,  the  fact  that,  in  assuming  the  existence 
of  a  direct  and  certain  "  knowledge  "of  "  reality,"  whether  external 
or  internal,  other  than  mere  mental  and  subjective  states,  I  do  not 
mean  to  assert  or  imply  that  we  at  the  same  time  can  determine  what 
this  "  reality  "  is.  That  may  remain  an  open  question  for  settlement 
by  other  means,  as  the  case  may  be.  All  that  I  am  contending  for  is 
that  we  have  the  right  to  assert  on  the  basis  of  perceptive  and  apper- 
ceptive cognition  that  there  is  more  than  mere  "  phenomena  "  or  sub- 
jective states  within  the  range  of  certitude.  What  it  is  I  might  even 
never  "know,"  so  far  as  this  fact  is  concerned.  I  would  even  admit 
and  assert  that  apperception  can  never  give  this  "  reality  "  in  the  first 
conception  of  it.     Apperception  may  say  something  about  it  in  com- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  205 

parison  with  any  other  "  reality  "  obtainable,  but  it  does  not  originally 
give  it.  The  principle  of  identity  is  not  qualified  to  determine  a 
W  reality  "  other  than  "  phenomena  "  in  any  case,  though  it  may  say 
something  about  its  ' '  nature "  either  in  comparison  with  other  like 
"  realities  "  or  in  respect  of  the  uniformity  of  its  behavior.  But  it  can- 
not primarily  determine  it.  The  principle  of  causality  is  that  which 
determines  the  existence  of  more  than  "  phenomena,"  but  it  does  not 
determine  the  kind  in  any  terms  of  common  qualities  as  does  apper- 
ception and  the  principle  of  identity.  From  the  standpoint  of  apper- 
ception the  ultimate  "  reality"  may  remain  "  unknowable  "  which  is 
only  to  say  that  it  could  not  be  defined  in  terms  of  conferentia  and  dif- 
ferentia, that  is,  of  kind.  The  "  knowledge  "  of  it  as  determined  by 
the  principle  of  causality  is  only  that  of  the  fact,  not  of  the  "  nature  " 
or  kind  except  in  so  far  as  "  nature  "  is  expressed  in  what  reality  does. 
I  mean,  therefore,  to  maintain  nothing  more  in  this  doctrine  of  the 
immediate  cognition  of  "  reality  "  than  the  fact  of  it  and  shall  leave 
the  determination  of  its  "nature"  to  further  and  more  complicated 
investigation.  Only  one  step  at  a  time  can  be  taken  in  the  theory  of 
u  knowledge"  whose  condition  is  an  analysis  of  the  complex  product 
as  the  mature  consciousness  finds  it. 

I  must  still  further  remark  for  the  reader  that  I  am  not  assuming 
at  present  any  distinction  between  '*  empirical  "  and  "  a  priori  "  proc- 
esses of  acquiring  "  knowledge."  I  wish  my  statements  to  be  true 
on  either  theory  being  true  or  false.  The  immediate  "  knowledge" 
which  I  am  defending  is  intended  to  be  entirely  independent  of  that 
controversy  that  so  dominated  the  philosophical  discussions  of  the  last 
century.  I  do  not  intend  that  immediate  "  knowledge"  shall  be  con- 
ditioned upon  the  settlement  of  that  issue  or  the  choice  of  either  side 
of  it.  Whether  "empirical"  or  "a  priori,"  I  mean  that  what  is 
given  in  cognition  shall  be  certain. 

But  there  is  a  decided  limitation  to  the  area  of  this  certain  and  im- 
mediate "  knowledge  "  which  I  have  supposed.  I  intend  that  it  shall 
extend  no  further  than  the  judgment  of  "  reality"  involved  in  present 
fact.  I  am  not  explaining  or  justifying  the  process  in  those  judgments 
which  are  called  "  universal  and  necessary."  These  must  be  subjected 
to  further  and  different  investigation.  I  am  explaining  and  justifying 
only  what  I  shall  call  the  singular  and  present  judgment.  It  is  the 
synthesis  of  an  apprehension  and  a  principle  of  judgment  or  category. 
The  application  of  causality  or  identity  to  an  apprehension  results  in 
the  interpretation  of  it  at  the  moment  either  as  proceeding  from  a 
given   cause  or  as  related  in  kind  to  another  fact.     It  does  not  pro- 


206  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

nounce  upon  its  "  universality  or  necessity."  The  simplest  illustration 
of  this  is  the  impersonal  judgment.  For  example  :  "  It  rains,"  "It 
snows,"  "It  is  clear,"  "  It  reads  well,"  "  It  sounds  beautiful,"  "  It  is 
evident,"  etc.  The  impersonal  judgment  aims  to  express  the  fact  of 
an  event  or  "  phenomenon,"  and  does  not  specifically  indicate  the  sub- 
ject or  cause.  It  assumes  a  cause  or  ground  in  general,  but  does  not 
name  it  in  terms  of  comparison  with  other  specific  facts  or  "  realities." 
Of  course,  the  order  of  "knowledge"  is  predicate  then  subject  as  is 
always  the  case,  but  the  order  of  statement  is  that  of  "  reality,"  subject 
first  and  predicate  afterward,  conforming  to  the  fact  that  the  ordo  cog- 
nitionis  is  the  reverse  of  the  ordo  natures.  But  the  immediate  judg- 
ment to  which  I  give  certitude,  and  synthetic  and  objective  character  is 
limited  to  the  present  "  experience  "  and  its  reference  to  a  subject 
whether  we  are  certain  of  what  that  subject  is  or  not.  Also  whether 
in  apperception  the  connection  between  subject  and  predicate  as  im- 
plied in  the  attributes  involved  is  accidental  or  necessary  is  not  as- 
sumed. It  is  only  the  present  fact  of  identity  or  difference,  whether 
contingent  or  necessary,  that  is  concerned.  No  questions  but  the  fact 
of  present  "  reality  "  are  involved  in  the  assumption  of  certain  imme- 
diate "knowledge"  of  the  synthetic  type  as  explained.  We  might 
extend  the  illustrations  of  it  to  such  judgments  as  "  This  is  white,"  or 
"  This  shines,"  etc.  But  however  we  express  it  the  immediate  cogni- 
tions to  which  I  intend  to  assign  a  certitude  probably  as  great  as  in 
apprehension  are  only  the  reference  of  a  present  fact  of  "  experience" 
to  its  cause  or  its  kind. 

3.  Objections. — There  is  a  certain  class  of  phenomena  which  will 
appear  as  objections  to  this  supposed  certitude  and  validity  of  cogni- 
tive judgments.  They  are  those  of  Illusions,  Hallucinations,  and 
Dreams.  In  all  of  these  we  form  judgments  of  "  reality  "  and  then  are 
supposed  to  discover  their  error.  Until  that  error  is  discovered,  or 
presumably  discovered,  the  conviction  of  the  validity  of  the  previous 
judgment  is  as  strong  as  that  of  apprehension.  But  any  one  of  the 
phenomena  mentioned  seems  to  remove  the  right  to  any  such  convic- 
tion. The  force  of  the  argument  lies  in  the  fact  that  as  "  experiences," 
as  facts  of  consciousness,  as  apprehensions,  they  have  to  be  accepted. 
They  have  one  common  characteristic  with  the  facts  of  normal  con- 
sciousness, namely,  the  characteristic  of  being  a  fact  of  consciousness, 
the  difference  being  only  that  in  one  a  corresponding  "  reality  "  is  not 
valid  as  it  is  supposed  to  be  in  the  other,  namely,  in  the  normal  con- 
sciousness. It  would  seem  then  that  the  only  "  knowledge  "  of  which 
we  can  be   absolutely  certain  is  that  of  apprehension  and  that  all  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  207 

rest  is  more  or  less  doubtful.  At  any  rate,  if  we  can  sustain  the  cer- 
titude of  cognition  as  defined,  it  would  appear  that  we  should  have  to 
base  it  on  the  distinction  between  normal  and  abnormal  consciousness. 
We  found  in  apprehension  that  this  distinction  was  not  required  and 
that  apprehensions  were  valid  without  regard  to  the  question  of  sanity 
or  insanity.  But  it  would  appear  that,  if  we  are  to  make  good  the 
contention  in  regard  to  the  universal  validity  of  cognition  it  must  be 
based  on  its  limitation  to  the  normal  consciousness  and  some  criterion 
for  distinguishing  between  the  normal  and  abnormal  mind. 

I  do  not  conceal  from  myself  the  fact  that  there  is  a  real  problem 
here  of  some  interest  and  perhaps  of  importance  in  the  theory  of 
**  knowledge."  Nor  shall  I  venture  on  a  reply  to  these  objections  in 
any  dogmatic  spirit.  It  is  possible  that  the  answer  that  I  shall  present 
may  appear  to  many  as  unsatisfactory.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  I  can 
only  present  such  facts  and  arguments  as  are  accessible,  and  if  they 
are  not  conclusive  the  case  must  be  maintained  with  reservations. 

Let  us  take  first  the  "  phenomena  "  of  illusions.  Now  it  is  peculiar 
to  them  that  the  very  conception  of  "  illusion"  implies  a  standard  of 
' '  reality  "  by  which  to  determine  their  existence.  We  could  never  dis- 
cover an  illusion  unless  there  were  some  "  reality  "  from  which  they 
are  a  variation  and  exception  and  by  which  their  nature  is  estimated. 
That  is  to  say,  we  should  never  discover  illusions  but  for  this  variation 
and  no  distinction  could  be  drawn  for  polemical  uses  between  the 
"  real"  and  the  "  unreal."  Just  in  proportion  to  the  certitude  that 
there  are  illusions  would  we  have  a  certitude  of  the  "  reality  "  which 
determines  them. 

But  there  is  another  fact  of  much  greater  importance  than  the  one 
just  indicated,  and  perhaps  more  satisfactory  as  an  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion. It  is  that  an  "  illusion  "  is  a  false  inference,  or  due  to  a  false 
inference,  from  a  fact  of  "  experience."  It  is  not  opposed  to  cogni- 
tive judgment  as  I  defined  it,  but  only  to  inferential  judgment.  Thus 
I  see  an  object  before  me  which  I  take  to  be  an  orange.  Now 
**  orange  "  denotes  a  group  of  properties  more  numerous  than  may  be 
presented  in  conperception.  I  may  have  only  the  visual  "  percept" 
of  it,  and  I  infer  from  previous  "  experience "  that  the  tactual  and 
savory  properties  will  be  found  in  the  object  under  the  appropriate 
conditions.  If  I  put  the  case  to  the  proper  test  to  decide  the  truth  of 
this  inference  I  may  find  it  erroneous.  The  object  may  be  a  piece  of 
soap  like  an  "orange"  in  its  visual  appearance.  Hence  I  call  my 
previous  "  judgment"  an  illusion.  Cognition  does  not  require  that  I 
should  immediately  "  know"  that  the  merely  visual  object  should  be 


20S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

an  "  orange,"  but  that  before  I  pronounce  such  a  conclusion  I  must 
have  the  adequate  conperception.  All  that  cognition  gives,  according 
to  the  definition  and  explanation  of  it,  is  the  existence  of  a  cause  other 
than  the  presentation,  and  not  that  it  should  be  either  a  complex  of 
attributes  or  any  specific  object  of  "  experience "  involving  memory 
and  inference.  That  is  given  in  all  illusions  as  well  as  other  states 
assumed  to  be  free  from  their  defects.  We  always  assume  that  both 
the  illusion  and  the  "  experience  "  which  turns  out  to  be  an  illusion  are 
caused,  have  a  subject,  though  what  that  subject  or  cause  may  be  is  not 
determined  by  this  merely  general  fact.  The  cause  is  not  necessarily 
the  fact  or  expected  fact  that  is  inferred,  in  fact,  one  might  say,  is 
never  that,  but  the  reflex  of  the  actual  "  experience"  we  have  rather 
than  the  ground  of  some  inferred  and  possible  "  experience."  This  is 
to  say  that  cognition  and  its  certain  "  knowledge"  still  holds  good  in 
illusions.  The  definite  ground  or  cause  of  them  may  be  inferred  in  so 
far  as  that  is  supposed  to  be  identical  with  the  ground  of  the  inferred 
"  experience."  To  illustrate,  when  I  infer  that  the  visual  object 
before  me  is  an  "  orange,"  I  suppose  that  under  the  appropriate 
conditions  the  tactual  and  savory  qualities  will  be  present  in  con- 
sciousness, which  is  to  say  that  I  should  expect  to  find  that  the  cause 
of  the  present  sensation  is  the  same  (numero  eadeni)  as  that  which 
would  explain  the  corresponding  tactual  and  savory  qualities  when 
realized.  Only  conperception  could  ever  decide  the  truth  of  this  infer- 
ence. If  conperception  be  applied  and  the  inference  is  not  verified  we 
say  that  the  original  supposition  was  an  illusion,  and  this  means  only 
that  the  inferred  sameness  of  the  cause  for  the  visual  object  with  that 
for  "  experiences  "  of  another  kind  is  wrong,  not  that  there  is  no  cause 
or  object  at  all  present.  It  will  appear,  then,  that  cognition  as  I  have 
defined  it,  namely,  the  process  of  affirming  the  simple  fact,  that  of  a 
"  reality  "  other  than  the  "  phenomenal "  event,  is  still  valid  and  holds 
true  even  of  illusions. 

A  similar  answer  to  the  objection  from  hallucinations  can  be  made. 
They  differ  from  illusions  only  in  degree.  They  are  more  constant 
and  fixed,  and  the  abnormality  is  perhaps  more  decided.  But  whether 
the  same  or  not  in  kind  with  illusions,  the  same  argument  applies.  The 
question  is  not  whether  the  cause  assigned  by  the  hallucinated  mind  is 
the  correct  one  or  not,  but  it  is  whether  it  is  right  in  assigning  any 
cause  or  ground  at  all.  It  will  satisfy  all  the  conditions  of  cognition 
if  no  other  cause  or  ground  is  assigned  than  that  of  the  subject  him- 
self, and  hallucinated  persons  probably  refer  the  "  experiences  "  or 
presentations  invariably  to  themselves  as  their  own.    This  self  is  some- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  209 

thing  other  than  the  "  phenomenon,"  even  if  it  is  not  "  external"  in 
the  sense  of  outside  the  organism. 

A  further  reply  is  possible.  The  theory  of  hallucinations  in  physi- 
ology and  psychology  maintains  that  they  are  not  purely  spontaneous 
phenomena,  but  the  effect  of  secondary  stimuli,  that  is,  of  stimuli  as 
foreign  to  the  brain  centers  involved  in  the  hallucination  as  are  stimuli 
outside  the  body.  The  only  difference  between  them  and  the  normal 
experience  is  in  the  definite  coordination  between  stimulus  and  sensa- 
tion in  the  normal  case  and  the  incoordination  of  the  hallucinations 
with  their  stimulus.  That  is  to  say,  the  hallucinated  mind  infers  the 
identity  of  the  cause  of  its  M  experience  "  in  the  real  hallucination  with 
the  cause  in  the  normal  "  experience."  The  error  is  then  in  the  infer- 
ence and  not  in  the  fact  of  an  "  external  "  ground  of  the  phenomenon. 
The  physiological  explanation  assumes  as  necessary  for  its  nature  the 
existence  of  an  "  external  reality  "  quite  as  certainly  as  in  normal  ex- 
perience, only  it  does  not  require  the  normally  specific  cause. 

Now  as  dreams  are  only  a  type  of  hallucination  and  generally  ex- 
plained by  some  organic  stimulus,  they  and  their  relation  to  the  cogni- 
tion of  "  reality"  are  to  be  explained  in  the  same  way.  In  addition 
to  this  fact  they  are  also  hallucinations  that  lie  midway  between  the 
properly  abnormal  phenomena  of  that  name  and  the  illusions  of  the 
wakeful  state.  Consequently  they  are  open  to  the  study  of  the  sub- 
ject in  his  normal  and  wakeful  condition  as  the  ordinary  hallucina- 
tions are  not.  It  is  interesting  to  note,  therefore,  that  the  very  fact  of 
the  existence  of  dreams,  as  different  from  the  "  experiences"  of  the 
normal  waking  state,  requires  the  waking  judgment  for  its  determina- 
tion. That  is,  we  can  determine  the  illusory  character  of  dreams  by 
comparison  with  the  waking  life.  If  the  waking  life  and  its  judg- 
ments are  the  standard,  wre  can  assign  dreams  an  illusory  nature  only 
on  the  assumption  that  the  "reality"  of  the  waking  life  is  absent. 
But  it  is  perhaps  more  important  to  remark  that  the  dream  life  is  not 
usually  characterized  by  the  reflective  feeling  of  either  "  reality"  or 
"  unreality,"  but  that  the  distinction  arises  only  in  the  waking  and  re- 
flective state,  and  if  once  we  assume  that  this  latter  is  the  standard 
rather  than  the  bare  apprehensions  of  sleep  we  must  accept  the  con- 
sequence which  is  the  interpretation  of  the  dream  according  to  the 
principles  involved  in  the  waking  and  reflective  consciousness.  More- 
over, if  we  accept  the  view  that  dreams  are  only  the  waking  state  of 
some  one  or  two  senses  while  the  others  are  still  asleep  we  can  under- 
stand that  dreams  in  their  sense  of  "  reality"  are  simply  the  result  of 
the   inference   which   even   the   normal   waking   consciousness   would 


2IO  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

draw  under  the  same  circumstances,  but  is  prevented  in  this  normal 
state  from  drawing  by  the  presence  of  the  normal  corrective,  some 
space  or  sensory  fact  incompatible  with  the  inferred  fact.  Dreams  are 
thus  illustrations  of  both  illusion  and  hallucinations  and  do  not  stand 
in  the  way  of  some  "reality"  as  the  object  of  consciousness,  though 
it  is  not  specificalry'thc  inferred  "  reality"  which  we  should  expect  in 
normal  "  experience."  The  cause,  or  stimulus  representing  the  causal 
"  reality,"  is  secondary. 

But  while  we  thus  vindicate  the  certitude  and  objectivity  of  cogni- 
tion in  perception  and  conperception  we  do  not  obtain  for  them  any 
large  area  of  application.  The  "  knowledge"  given  by  them  is  small 
or  represents  a  small  area.  Both  apprehension  and  cognition  are  con- 
fined to  the  present  facts  of  "experience"  or  consciousness.  The 
former  has  none  of  the  material  content  of  judgment  as  synthetic, 
though  judgment  has  apprehension  for  its  basis.  But  judgment  in  so 
far  as  defined  and  in  so  far  as  it  represents  the  kind  of  "  knowledge  " 
with  which  we  are  at  present  concerned,  namely,  the  simplest  facts  of 
certitude  and  objectivity,  deals  with  the  present  data  of  apprehension, 
and  all  that  it  can  pronounce  with  confidence  is  the  existence  of  an  in- 
definite ground  or  cause  which  can  be  specifically  determined  only  by 
further  methods.  The  area  of  this  certain  and  objective  "  knowledge  " 
becomes  very  small,  and  it  contains  very  little  of  those  ideas  which 
represent  the  main  interest  of  science  and  philosophy.  We  have  ac- 
complished very  little  in  the  problem  of  "  knowledge,"  so  far  as  it 
interests  men  generally  and  we  may  not  be  able  to  get  any  farther. 
We  have  found  that  there  is  a  vast  system  of  conceptions,  beliefs  and 
convictions  which  represent  various  combinations  of  apprehension, 
cognition,  association  and  inference  whose  validity  is  not  subject  to  so 
easy  an  explanation  as  a  reference  to  these  elementary  processes  of 
apprehension  and  cognition.  The  investigation  of  these  complex  proc- 
esses and  the  measure  of  their  validity  and  invalidity  depends  upon  the 
criteria  supplied  by  scientific  method.  But  prior  to  the  discussion  of 
this  is  the  fact  of  generalization  or  the  universalizing  of  judgments. 
We  have  found  that  apprehension  gives  a  present  fact  and  cognition 
gives  only  a  present  singular  judgment.  "  Knowledge,"  however,  as 
usually  conceived,  involves  judgments  which  are  supposed  to  be  "  uni- 
versal "  and  some  of  them  "  necessary."  Are  these  on  the  same  foot- 
ing as  the  present  cognitions  ? 

4.  Generalization . — We  have  already  found  how  generalization 
takes  place  and  that  it  is  a  process  of  extending  a  judgment  beyond 
the  present  moment  or  the  present  locus  of  "  experience."     It  remains 


THE    CRITERIA    OF  TRUTH.  211 

to  examine  the  validity  of  this  act.  Such  judgments  always  involve 
some  form  of  plurality  in  their  meaning.  They  are  called  Particular 
and  Universal  propositions.  Possibly  we  could  add  what  may  be 
called  the  General  proposition.  This  last,  however,  is  ambiguous  in 
its  import.  It  is  particular  in  its  form  and  is  often  taken  for  universal 
in  its  meaning.  It  should,  therefore,  be  treated  a^  one  or  the  other  in 
clear  thinking.  "  Some  men  are  black"  will  illustrate  the  particular 
judgment,  and  "  All  men  are  mortal "  the  universal.  But  there  is  still 
an  equivocation  lurking  in  the  copula  and  related  to  the  modality  of 
the  judgment.  This  is  an  ambiguity  which  is  not  often  noticed.  Thus 
I  may  say,  "  All  war  is  demoralizing,"  or  "  All  poisonous  substances 
are  injurious,"  and  I  may  mean  either  that  they  are  so  merely  in  fact 
or  that  they  are  necessarily  so.  The  copula  is  or  "are"  does  not 
indicate  which  meaning  I  intend.  The  consequence  is  that  I  shall 
divide  judgment  into  three  types,  the  actual,  the  mnemonic  and  the  a 
priori.  The  actual  judgment  is  illustrated  by  the  proposition,  "  This 
is  cold,"  meaning  nothing  more  than  the  fact  that  a  given  object  is  now 
cold.  Nothing  is  said  or  implied  as  to  the  past  or  future.  The 
mnemonic  judgment,  though  the  copula  is  of  the  present  tense,  sub- 
jectively assumes  that  a  statement  is  made  involving  past  experience 
and  is  illustrated  by  such  propositions  as  "Men  are  (always  have 
been)  mortal."  This  judgment  states  a  fact  of  the  past  as  well  as  of 
the  present,  and  may  keep  the  future  open  to  further  "  experience"  or 
knowledge.  The  a  priori  judgment  is  the  universal  and  necessary 
proposition.  It  means  that  the  assertion  holds  good  for  all  time  and 
place.  It  may  be  illustrated  by  the  proposition,  "  All  matter  is  (neces- 
sarily) extended,"  or  "  Two  and  two  make  four." 

The  actual  judgment  may  be  dismissed  from  consideration  at 
present,  as  it  has  been  virtually  discussed  in  the  problem  of  cognition, 
generally  including  perception  and  conperception.  It  is  the  actual  or 
present  singular  judgment  that  is  given  by  that  process  and  nothing 
more,  according  to  the  definition  of  the  process.  In  generalization  or 
the  pluralization  of  judgment  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  mnemonic 
and  a  priori  propositions.  We  may  briefly  describe  them  as  the  fac- 
tual and  the  necessary .  In  the  problem  of  "  knowledge,"  however, 
the  factual  judgments  are  not  a  subject  of  dispute.  Their  validity  is 
admitted  with  the  recognition  of  the  facts.  Whatever  the  process  of 
determining  the  fact  of  any  given  connection  between  subject  and 
predicate,  the  validity  of  the  judgment  asserting  it  is  not  subject  to 
doubt  or  question  when  the  process  is  not  disputed.  The  real  problem 
of  "  knowledge"  is  the  right  to  assert  a  necessary  connection  between 


212  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

subject  and  predicate,  a  connection  that  is  to  hold  true  of  the  past  and 
future  independently  of  "  experience"  or  actual  observation  and  mem- 
ory. Consequently,  the  problem  is  to  determine  the  criterion  for  the 
validity  of  a  priori  or  universal  and  necessary  judgments.  That  is, 
when  am  I  entitled  to  suppose  that  an  assertion  is  absolutely  universal 
and  necessary  and  not  reducible  to  some  form  of  particular  or  merely 
factual  proposition? 

Preliminary  to  the  answer  to  this  question  several  matters  of  im- 
portance will  have  to  be  examined.  The  first  is  the  recall  of  the  way 
in  which  we  come  to  generalize  at  all.  We  have  found  previously  that 
the  ordo  cognitionis  and  the  or  do  naturce  in  propositions  or  "knowl- 
edge "  are  the  reverse  of  each  other.  The  ordo  cognitionis  is  predi- 
cate, then  subject,  and  the  ordo  naturce  is  subject,  then  predicate. 
Now,  in  simple  cognition  the  only  evidence  that  we  ever  obtain  for  the 
existence  of  the  subject  is  not  only  in  the  fact  of  apprehending  the 
event  or  events  represented  by  the  predicate  of  the  perceptive  and  con- 
perceptive  judgment,  but  it  is  more  particularly  the  assumption  or 
"  knowledge  "  that  it  is  a  relative  fact  and  to  be  explained  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality.  The  subject  thus  becomes  a  reflex  of  this  principle 
and  is,  as  explained,  an  indefinite  "this"  or  "it."  Its  specific  char- 
acter as  discriminated  from  other  centers  of  reference  is  a  subject  of 
determination  by  additional  processes.  But  we  state  this  order  of  de- 
pendence in  a  manner  the  reverse  of  its  discovery,  and  hence  the  cause 
is  put  as  prior  to  the  effect  or  attribute.  But  it  should  be  noted  that 
if  we  suppose  that  this  attribute  is  a  "  necessary"  one  of  the  subject, 
whatever  "  necessary  "  may  mean,  we  expect  to  find  it  in  all  cases  of 
this  subject  in  time  and  place.  This  expectation  is  based  upon  the 
uniformity  of  causation,  no  matter  how  we  may  suppose  that  such  a 
law  is  derived.  This  identity  of  cause  in  all  instances  means  that  the 
effect  or  fact  of  "experience"  is  the  same  in  such  cases.  The  evi- 
dence is  the  fact  of  apprehension  and  the  uniformity  of  kind  in  the  facts 
apprehended.  But  without  stating  the  case  in  terms  of  the  ratio  cognos- 
cendiwe  extend  the  judgment  to  all  cases  on  the  ground  of  the  identity 
of  kind  expressed  by  a  universalized  subject  as  determined  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  same  attribute.  It  is  not  the  identity  of  subject  and  predi- 
cate that  determines  it,  but  the  identity  of  the  different  subjects,  or 
rather  their  essential  similarity,  as  determined  by  the  sameness  or 
similarity  of  the  predicate  or  attribute  in  each  case.  The  subject  and 
predicate  may  be  identical  as  a  matter  of  fact  in  certain  cases,  but  the 
universalization  is  not  based  upon  this  circumstance.  Hence  for  the 
moment  I  am  dismissing  the  question  "  how"  we  come  to  "  know  "  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  21 3 

universal  and  am  concentrating  attention  upon  the  "ground"  of  the 
assertion.  That  is  the  principle  of  identity  in  the  subjects  and  in  the 
predicate  as  an  object  of  "experience"  or  apprehension.  How  the 
principle  of  identity  is  the  determinant  of  necessary  judgments  will 
appear  in  the  further  analysis  of  the  problem.  All  that  I  indicate  at 
present  is  the  fact  of  it. 

It  will  be  important  to  note  a  division  of  judgments  bearing  upon 
the  question  under  consideration.  This  distinction,  as  involving  an 
important  difference  in  nature,  is  not  always  recognized,  if  ever,  in  the 
form  in  which  I  wish  to  state  it.  I  shall  therefore  divide  judgments 
into  mathematical  and  substantive  judgments.  Mathematical  judg- 
ments are  based  upon  space  and  time.  Geometry  and  its  congeners 
represent  the  mathematical  problems  of  space.  Arithmetic  and  its 
congeners  represent  the  mathematical  problems  of  number  in  either 
space  or  time  or  both.  Substantive  judgments  are  based  upon  the  con- 
ceptions of  substance  and  attribute,  whether  material  or  mental,  or  any 
and  all  other  "  realities"  other  than  space  and  time.  The  field  may 
be  best  illustrated  by  the  physical  world  and  it  may  not  be  necessary 
to  draw  our  representation  of  such  judgments  from  any  other  province. 
Hence  we  may  take  all  the  judgments  in  physical  science,  except  those 
which  are  based  upon  the  space  and  time  quality  of  matter,  as  repre- 
senting what  is  meant  by  substantive  judgments,  "  Iron  is  a  metal," 
M  Wood  is  combustible,"  "  Snow  is  white."  Mathematical  judgments 
are  illustrated  by  such  as  "  Two  and  two  make  four,"  "  The  angles  of 
a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles,"  "  Things  equal  to  the  same 
thing  are  equal  to  each  other." 

Now  before  discussing  the  difference  between  these  two  types  of 
judgment  in  the  problem  of  a  priori  and  necessary  truth  I  must  call 
attention  to  certain  differences  between  them  in  the  relation  of  subject 
to  predicate.  In  mathematical  propositions  this  relation  is  that  of 
either  equality  or  inequality,  quantitative  identity  or  difference,  with- 
out any  reference  to  qualitative  character.  In  substantive  judgments 
the  relation  is  inhesion  or  exclusion  for  intensive  and  similarity  or 
diversity  for  extensive  propositions,  and  hence  may  be  said  to  be  quali- 
tative in  character.  Now  the  generalization  of  the  judgment  does  not 
depend  on  the  question  whether  this  relation  between  subject  and  pred- 
icate is  quantitative  or  qualitative,  but  upon  the  question  whether  the 
subject  remains  the  same  or  constant  in  space  and  time  and  upon  the 
question  whether  the  predicate  is  "necessarily"  connected  with  the 
subject  in  any  case. 

It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  the  problem  requires  us  to  say  some- 


214  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

thing  about  what  is  meant  by  "  necessity  "  or"  necessary  "  connection. 
There  are  various  meanings  of  this  term  which  make  it  difficult  to  fix 
upon  any  single  clear  import  for  discussion.  Any  dictionary  will  show 
this  to  be  true.  But  I  think  there  is  one  general  conception  of  it  which 
will  cover  two  or  more  specific  applications  of  the  term.  This  is 
found  in  its  contrast  with  the  idea  of  freedom  in  which  possible  alter- 
natives to  any  given  fact  or  event  are  supposed  instead  of  being 
excluded.  "  Necessity"  in  such  cases,  therefore,  implies  the  impos- 
sibility of  alternative  facts  or  events,  and  so  the  constraint  of  assuming 
only  one  fact,  if  any  at  all.  This  general  conception  will  cover  the 
ideas  of  both  logical  and  physical  "  necessity."  Logical  "  necessity" 
is  the  constraint  of  accepting  a  conclusion  or  belief  which  the  evidence 
or  argument  compels.  Physical  "necessity"  is  inevitability  of  an 
effect,  fact  or  event  under  the  conditions  supposed  to  be  the  cause. 
Now  as  to  the  "  necessity  "  of  the  connection  between  subject  and  pred- 
icate in  any  case  there  is  first  the  mere  question  whether  any  identity 
exists  between  them  and  second  the  question  whether  the  connection 
is  supposed  to  represent  the  idea  of  causality.  In  the  first  case  the 
"necessity"  is  convertible  with  identity  or  implied  by  it,  and  in  the 
second  case  causality  has  no  meaning  unless  "  necessity"  is  implied  by 
it.  This  docs  not  mean  that  any  cause  is  itself  a  "  necessity,"  for  there 
may  be  no  causes  at  all,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  but  only  that,  if 
there  is  an  effect,  if  there  is  any  fact  beginning  in  time,  it  requires  a 
cause  to  explain  it.  It  is  the  assumption  that  any  fact  is  an  effect  or 
event  that  compels  us  to  talk  about  causes,  and  that  compulsion  is 
simply  the  law  of  our  nature  to  assume  some  cause  where  we  suppose, 
believe,  assume,  or  are  certain  of  effects.  The  "necessity"  of  the 
connection  between  the  fact  represented  by  the  predicate  and  its 
cause  or  ground,  in  perception  and  conperception,  is  simply  the 
correlate  and  reflex  of  the  law  of  thought  about  such  facts,  while 
the  "necessity"  of  the  connection  where  similarity  is  involved,  as 
in  apperceptive  judgments,  is  a  reflex  or  representative  of  that  idea 
of  persistence  or  fixity  for  which  "necessity"  has  often  stood  in 
human  thought.  But  once  assume  thus  the  existence  of  "  necessary" 
connection  in  any  individual  case  the  only  question  that  remains  is 
that  of  its  uniformity  afterward,  and  that  uniformity  will  be  guaran- 
teed by  the  identity  of  the  subject  and  predicate  in  space  and  time. 
This  means  that  the  evidence  of  the  "  necessary "  connection  will 
depend  more  distinctly  upon  the  identity  of  the  subjects  in  space 
and  time  which  are  indicated  by  the  identity  of  the  predicates  in 
"  experience."     The  prediction  of  universality  which  a  priori  judg- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  215 

ments  embody  will  depend  on  this  uniformity  of  the  two  terms  and 
their  connection. 

Now  in  mathematical  judgments,  which  are  based  upon  the  world 
of  space  and  time,  we  deal  with  subjects  which  are  changeless. 
Space  and  time  are  each  homogeneities,  continua,  self-identical 
throughout,  if  I  may  use  that  expression  to  define  their  unity  of  kind, 
not  between  each  other  but  between  the  parts  of  each  and  the  whole,  so 
to  speak.  They  are  the  principles  of  both  continuity  and  individuation. 
In  dimensional  quality  they  determine  continuity.  In  divisional  qual- 
ity they  determine  individuation,  points  that  in  space  and  moments  that 
in  time.  Points  are  the  individual  units  of  space,  moments  those  of 
time.  The  units  are  identical  in  kind  and  the  collective  whole  is  con- 
tinuous and  identical  in  quality,  but  not  in  quantity,  with  the  units  or 
parts.  They  are  the  constants  of  nature.  They  are  not  complexes  of 
attributes,  nor  grounds  of  variable  modes,  but  "  realities  "  with  but  one 
fixed  property,  if  that  expression  can  be  used,  or  dimension,  namely 
commensurable  quality.  In  fact,  one  cannot  well  distinguish  between 
the  quality  and  the  "  reality"  of  which  we  may  think  it  necessary  to  speak 
when  referring  to  quality  of  any  kind  in  time  and  space.  "  Commensur- 
able quality  "  is  all  that  we  have  to  think  of  in  space  and  time.  The 
consequence  is  that  they  represent  the  best  illustrations  of  the  principle 
of  identity  that  we  can  choose  in  a  concrete  form.  The  subjects  of  math- 
ematical judgments  therefore,  represent  facts  having  or  embodying  as 
perfect  identity  of  kind  throughout  space  and  time  as  we  can  imagine 
and  the  identity  between  subject  and  predicate,  as  dealing  only  with 
quantity  of  commensurable  quality,  is  so  definite  that  the  generalization 
of  all  mathematical  propositions  can  be  made  a  priori.  In  the  judg- 
ment "7  +  5  are  12,"  dismissing  the  actual  and  mnemonic,  or  factual 
judgments,  as  not  the  subject  of  dispute,  we  have  the  a  priori  judg- 
ment, that  "7  +  5  are  always  and  necessarily  12,"  simply  on  the 
ground  that  the  subject  remains  constant,  changeless,  and  the  predicate 
is  quantitatively  and  qualitatively  identical  with  it.  The  principle  of 
identity  thus  determining  the  case,  we  have  a  necessary  truth  of  which 
certitude  can  be  proclaimed,  just  as  the  certitude  of  the  conclusion  in 
deductive  reasoning  is  determined  by  the  same  principle.  In  mathe- 
matical judgments  we  can  reason  from  the  singular  to  the  universal,  so 
to  speak,  because  there  is  no  possibility  of  any  qualitative  difference 
between  them. 

In  substantive  judgments  we  are  dealing  with  a  world  of  change  as 
well  as  incontrovertibility  of  subject  and  predicate  qualitatively  in 
intensive  propositions,  and  in  extensive  propositions  the  convertibility 


2l6  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

occurs  only  when  quantity  is  considered.  But  as  extensive  proposi- 
tions have  their  ultimate  meaning  determined  by  their  conversion  into 
intensive  judgments  we  can  reduce  the  problem  of  generalization  in 
substantive  judgments  to  that  of  the  intensive  propositions,  such  as 
"All  men  are  mortal,"  "  Snow  is  white,"  or  "  Blood  is  red."  Now 
in  intensive  judgments  there  is  no  evidence  of  identity  of  kind  between 
subject  and  predicate.  As  the  properties  of  the  subject  change  under 
various  conditions  while  the  subject  or  substance  is  supposed,  in  the 
law  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  substance,  to  remain  constant 
or  to  persist  in  space  and  time,  we  have  conditions  under  which  it  is 
difficult  to  generalize  with  a  priori  confidence  and  certitude,  as  in 
mathematical  judgments.  As  I  have  indicated,  a  priori  generalization 
depends  on  the  uniformity  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  relation 
between  subject  and  predicate  can  be  asserted.  When  subject  and  pred- 
icate are  conceived  as  convertible  with  each  other  either  quantitatively 
or  qualitatively  or  both  and  the  subject  or  predicate  are  assumed  to  be 
changeless  in  space  and  time,  the  universality  of  the  judgment  of  per- 
ception and  conperception  is  adequately  guaranteed.  But  when  we 
begin  to  deal  with  a  universe  of  change,  or  of  phenomena,  the  gener- 
alization will  be  subject  to  other  conditions  in  the  determination  of  its 
validity.  On  the  other  hand,  in  definitions  and  in  abstract  conceptions 
we  seem  to  be  able,  in  spite  of  this  world  of  change,  to  generalize  with 
tolerable  certitude.  Besides  we  may  generalize  hypothetically  with  as 
much  certitude  as  in  mathematical  judgments.  Consequently  it  will 
be  necessary  to  consider  the  various  conditions  under  which  the  certi- 
tude and  incertitude  of  these  generalizations  occur. 

It  will  be  important  to  remark,  however,  that  this  world  of  change 
to  which  I  have  referred  is  qualified.  The  change  is  in  the  predicates 
of  "  reality"  and  is  not  supposed  of  the  "  reality  "  or  substance  itself. 
The  changes  are  in  the  modes  of  a  changeless  "  reality,"  the  "  phe- 
nomena "  are  activities  of  a  subject  or  substance  which  remains  perma- 
nent and  fixed  as  a  subject  of  phenomena.  This  is  illustrated  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  conservation  of  energy. 
Whether  these  doctrines  are  true  or  not  is  indifferent  to  the  present 
question.  I  am  stating  them  as  believed.  That  is  all  that  is  necessary 
for  my  present  contention.  If  it  should  be  disputed  we  should  only 
have  to  hold  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  physical  science  in  abeyance. 
The  conceptions  here  defended  are  only  obtained  in  deference  to  the 
doctrines  of  physical  science.  In  all  cases,  however,  the  predicates 
or  phenomena  of  "  reality  "  are  represented  as  modal  changes,  so  that 
there  is  not  the  same  constancy  or  persistence  in  the  "  physical  "  world 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  217 

as  in  the  mathematical  worlds  of  space  and  time.  Now  it  should  be 
observed  that  in  so  far  as  substance,  whether  material  or  mental,  parti- 
cipates in  the  worlds  of  space  and  time,  in  extensive  and  protensive 
quantity,  it  becomes  subject  to  the  laws  of  mathematics,  those  of  space 
and  time,  and  all  perceptive  and  conperceptive  judgments  involving 
this  relation  will  be  generalizable  as  are  the  propositions  of  pure  math- 
ematics. Beyond  that  the  generalizations  must  be  examined  with  some 
care.  All  this  is  only  to  say  that  When  the  predicate  of  a  judgment  is 
conceived  as  qualitatively  and  quantitatively  identical  with  the  subject, 
as  in  mathematical  propositions,  the  generalization  can  be  a  priori  cer- 
tain, universal  and  necessary.  But  when  this  relation  does  not  obtain, 
the  problem  becomes  one  of  different  conditions  and  must  be  submitted 
to  analysis.  Let  me  begin  with  definitions  which  have  universality  and 
necessity. 

(a)  In  all  definitions  we  have  a  combination  of  intensive  and  exten- 
sive judgments  in  which  there  is  such  a  quantification  of  terms  that  the 
subject  and  predicate  become  quantitatively  and  qualitatively  identical. 
The  subject  and  predicate  are  thus  necessarily  connected  or  related,  so 
that  wherever  either  term  is  found  the  other  must  be  found  by  virtue  of 
this  identity,  and  the  universality  and  necessity  are  but  a  reflex  of  the 
law  of  identity  in  the  case.  For  example,  "  Man  is  a  rational  animal," 
in  which  "  rational  "  is  taken  as  the  differentia  and  M  animal  "  as  im- 
plying the  conferentia.  The  predicate  is  thus  identical  with  the  sub- 
ject as  constituting  the  whole  of  it,  and  hence  where  we  find  the  predi- 
cate, or  the  qualities  represented  by  it  we  should  find  the  same  subject, 
and  the  relation  is  necessary  as  being  convertible  with  their  identity. 
The  definition,  however,  is  nothing  more  than  an  explication  of  the 
meaning  of  the  two  different  terms,  so  that  the  definition  means  only  that 
wherever  we  use  the  term  "  man  "  we  should  expect  to  find  the  quali- 
ties expressed  or  implied  by  the  terms  "  rational  animal,"  not  that  there 
is  any  constancy  or  persistence  in  the  "  realities"  so  named.  Our  con- 
cepts and  terms  must  have  identity  and  constancy  of  meaning,  whether 
nature  is  such  or  not,  and  hence  definitions  have  a  formal  universality 
and  necessity  which  is  important  for  the  communication  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  and  for  the  interpretation  of  facts  when  they  occur,  but  are  not 
indicative  of  the  constancy  and  identity  in  space  and  time  of  the  facts 
which  they  interpret.  This  is  only  to  say  that  the  "  knowledge"  (cer- 
titude and  necessity)  expressed  in  definitions  may  not  have  or  require 
objective  "  real "  content,  valid  meaning  and  implication  of  a  "re- 
ality "  other  than  an  idea  as  occurs  in  perception  and  conperception, 
but  simply  implicates  the  identity  of  subject  and  predicate  for  thought 


2l8  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

without  implication  one  way  or  the  other  in  regard  to  "  reality."  The 
"  reality  "  when  it  is  found  will  be  observed  to  accord  with  the  u  ideal" 
case.  It  is  a  mere  problem  of  identity,  and  the  world  of  definition  will 
be  the  same  as  the  world  of  mathematics.  The  universality  and  ne- 
cessity are  but  other  expressions  for  the  identity  of  the  subjects  and 
predicates,  and  the  judgments  will  not  hold  good  for  any  "  real  "  world 
unless  identity,  constancy,  or  homogeneity  are  characteristic  of  it  as 
they  are  characteristic  of  the  concepts  and  their  relations  to  each  other. 
{b)  There  is  the  ordinary,  apperceptive  or  extensive  proposition 
which  must  be  briefly  examined  and  the  generalizations  involved  in  it. 
It  may  be  illustrated  in  such  judgments  as  "  All  men  are  vertebrates," 
"  Iron  is  a  metal,"  "  Wood  is  a  substance,"  '  Letters  are  symbols,"  or 
"  Philosophy  is  a  science  "  and  "  Painting  is  an  art."  Now  if  the  gener- 
alization in  these  judgments  is  more  than  factual  or  empirical,  whether 
actual  or  mnemonic,  that  is,  if  they  are  universally  and  necessarily 
true,  as  in  mathematics,  it  must  be  because  of  some  application  of  the 
principle  of  identity  in  them  which  will  enable  us  to  extend  them  be- 
yond their  empirical  application.  Now,  being  apperceptive  judgments, 
whether  factual  or  necessary,  they  represent  some  sort  of  identity  in 
kind  between  subject  and  predicate,  or  between  the  things  expressed 
by  their  terms,  and  hence  the  necessity  of  the  connection  between 
them,  even  in  their  empirical  conception.  But  the  question  now  is 
whether  this  connection  will  hold  in  all  space  and  time.  Now  if  the 
predicate,  or  quality  expressed  by  it,  represent  an  identical  or  per- 
sistent and  constant  fact  in  time  or  space,  the  identity  of  the  subject  in 
kind  goes  with  it,  simply  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that,  being  apperceptive 
or  extensive  judgments,  the  two  terms  are  identical  in  their  implica- 
tions of  properties,  identical  in  quality  though  they  may  not  be  in 
quantity.  They  partake  of  the  nature  of  a  definition  in  all  but  their 
quantification,  and  this  fact  carries  with  it  the  implication  of  the  neces- 
sity of  their  connection,  if  the  fact  expressed  by  the  predicate  is  con- 
stant in  "  experience  "  or  the  same  in  thought.  The  only  difference 
between  this  type  of  judgment  and  definitions  is  that  the  latter  are 
simply  convertible,  owing  to  the  qualitative  and  quantitative  identity 
between  the  two  terms,  while  the  former  are  only  qualitatively  identi- 
cal, and  this  identity  suffices  to  give  them  universality  and  necessity  in 
space  and  time,  but  only  in  so  far  as  the  quality  expressed  by  the  pred- 
icate is  identical  with  the  quality  expressed  in  the  subject.  I  am  deal- 
ing only  with  the  extensive  and  apperceptive  import  of  the  proposi- 
tions and  nothing  else,  and  this  involves  identity  of  kind  between 
subject  and  predicate  and  identity  of  kind  in  space  and  time  of  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  219 

predicate  as  an  object  of  "  experience."  The  necessity,  however, 
indicated  is  not  the  necessity  of  this  identity  in  space  and  time  of  the 
predicate  as  a  fact,  but  only  the  necessity  of  its  relation  to  the  subject 
which  it  evinces.  The  generalization  is  only  a  reflex  or  embodiment 
of  this  universal  or  necessary  relation.  That  is,  the  subject  must  mean 
the  same  thing  wherever  the  qualities  are  found  which  determine  its 
meaning  in  the  individual  instance.  But  it  is  apparent  that  only  when 
the  judgment  represents  an  embodiment  of  the  principle  of  identity  in 
some  form  that  its  necessity  can  be  assumed  and  that  identity  must  be 
between  the  two  terms  of  the  proposition  as  a  guarantee  for  the  possi- 
bility of  generalizing  at  all,  that  is,  of  asserting  the  connection  for 
all  individuals,  though  the  generalization  may  be  only  hypothetical. 

(c)  I  next  take  up  intensive  judgments.  They  are  illustrated  in 
all  propositions  representing  the  relation  between  substance  and 
attribute.  For  example,  "  Iron  is  hard,"  "  Oranges  are  yellow," 
"  Snow  is  white,"  "  Man  is  rational,"  "  Water  has  specific  gravity," 
etc.  We  have  in  these  judgments  examples  in  which  the  subject  and 
predicate  do  not  seem  to  be  in  any  respect  similar  or  in  that  regard 
representative  of  the  principle  of  identity.  So  far  as  the  principle  of 
identity  is  represented  by  unity  of  space  or  time  they  may  embody  it, 
but  not  in  the  conception  of  similarity  which  is  the  important  condi- 
tion of  necessary  connection  in  universal  propositions,  as  the  assumed 
plurality  of  subjects  involves  at  least  a  numerical  difference.  The  ab- 
sence of  this  identity  between  substance  and  attribute  implied  in  the  in- 
tensive judgment,  taken  with  the  fact  that  the  substantive  world  is  one 
of  change,  in  many  of  its  aspects  at  least,  prevents  us  from  generalizing 
unconditionally  in  intensive  propositions.  That  is  to  say,  we  cannot 
generalize  an  individual  case  of  perception  and  conperception  with 
any  a  priori  certitude  and  necessity  without  recognizing  conditions  of 
its  validity  which  apparently  hold  good  in  some  cases  and  not  in  others. 
For  example,  suppose  we  have  the  individual  instance  in  perception 
of  "  This  iron  is  hard."  We  cannot  assume  from  this  that  "  All  iron 
will  be  hard,"  because  "  iron  "  in  a  melted  condition  is  a  liquid,  in  a 
volatile  state  it  is  a  gas,  frozen  by  liquid  air  it  is  brittle.  Hence  we 
cannot  say  that  "  All  iron  is  hard  "in  the  ordinary  import  of  that  term, 
"  hard,"  meaning  that  "  Iron  in  all  conditions  is  hard."  I  can  equally 
say,  "  Iron  is  volatile,"  "  Iron  is  fluid,"  "  Iron  is  tough,"  "  Iron  is 
brittle."  These  are  contradictory  judgments  as  they  stand,  though  all 
true  with  the  qualification  of  the  special  condition  in  which  the  predi- 
cate holds  true  of  the  subject.  This  is  to  say  that  in  such  intensive 
judgments  I  cannot  generalize  in  an  a  priori  manner,  except  that  I 


220  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

assume  an  identity  of  the  conditions  under  which  I  observe  the  con- 
nection of  subject  and  predicate  in  perception  and  conperception.  The 
extent  to  which  we  can  generalize  in  such  cases  is  dependent  upon  in- 
ductive methods  and  so  the  generalization  does  not  represent  a  neces- 
sary truth  for  all  time  and  space  in  the  world  of  change,  but  only  in 
the  identity  of  the  conditions  determining  the  relation  in  the  first 
instance. 

The  last  remark  suggests  the  reason  for  the  apparent  validity  of 
the  universal  judgment  "  Snow  is  white."  This  seems  to  be  neces- 
sarily true.  But  this  is  because  the  subject  is  a  name  for  the  condi- 
tion of  a  given  substance  in  which  it  appears  always  to  be  white.  Or 
perhaps  we  can  express  the  same  fact  in  another  way.  The  whiteness 
concerned  is  the  evidence  of  the  condition  of  that  substance  which  I 
call  "snow"  in  that  condition,  and  "  snow  "  becomes  not  the  name 
of  the  substance,  but  for  its  condition  which  is  whiteness  of  a  certain 
sort.  In  spite  of  its  substantive  form  the  term  "snow"  becomes 
attributive  or  phenomenal  in  its  import,  and  convertible  with  the 
predicate,  that  is,  identical  with  it,  and  the  generalization  and  necessary 
connection  apparent  is  due  to  this  fact. 

Now  it  should  be  observed  that  the  subjects  of  all  judgments,  ex- 
tensive or  intensive,  are  substantives ,  the  predicate  is  substantive  only 
in  extensive  and  never  in  intensive  propositions.  But  in  spite  of  its 
substantive  form  of  expression  the  subject  is  not  always  substantive  in 
its  direct  and  primary  import,  but  only  in  its  secondary  meaning  and 
implication.  Hence  before  we  can  settle  the  a  priori  and  necessary 
character  of  generalizations  in  intensive  judgments  as  formally  defined, 
we  require  to  distinguish  between  subjects  of  propositions  that  denote 
substances  and  subjects  that  denote  their  condition,  or  denote  attributes 
or  phenomenal  facts  in  spite  of  their  substantive  form.  In  the  former 
case  a  priori  generalization  of  the  certain  and  necessary  kind  is  not 
possible,  because  there  is  no  apparent  identity  between  subject  and 
predicate  implied  by  the  conceptions  and  the  predicate,  in  the  individ- 
ual case,  may  not  represent  as  persistent  a  fact  as  the  subject,  and  it 
must  do  this  to  justify  the  necessity  of  the  generalization.  But  in  the 
second  case,  where  the  subject  may  be  identical  with  the  predicate  in 
spite  of  its  form  of  expression,  the  a  priori  generalization  is  possible. 

What  has  just  been  said  about  the  double  import  of  substantive 
terms  brings  us  to  an  important  aspect  of  the  present  problem.     If  we 
could  assume  but  one  meaning  for  intensive  propositions  in  the  denota-  . 
tion  of  the  subject  and  that  the  mere  conception  of  substance  with 
indefinite  variability  of  its  predicates  or  attributes  and  conditions,  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  221 

whole  case  would  be  clear  against  the  universality  and  necessity  of  the 
judgments  involved.  But  the  fact  that  substantive  terms  may  have  an 
attributive  or  phenomenal  import,  as  well  as  the  "  real"  or  that  of  a  sub- 
stratum, establishes  a  condition  of  things  which  suggests  that  we  may 
treat  the  subject  of  all  intensive  judgments  in  this  way  and  disregard 
the  consideration  of  the  substantive  "  reality  "  altogether.  The  neces- 
sity of  doing  it  in  some  cases  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  the  subject  or 
substantive  term  may  have  a  phenomenal  import  identical  with  that  of 
the  predicate.  Thus  to  apprehension  "snow"  and  "white"  have 
absolutely  the  same  meaning.  If  we  were  asked  to  tell  another  what 
we  meant  by  "  snow"  we  should  have  to  distinguish  it  by  its  essential 
appearance  to  apprehension.  If  we  ever  discover  or  conceive  a  differ- 
ence between  the  subject  and  predicate  concepts  it  will  be  either  (a)  in 
perception  and  conperception  where  the  cause  is  thought  to  be  other 
than  the  effect,  whether  different  in  kind  or  not,  or  {b)  in  the  case 
where  the  subject  concept  represents  a  group  of  qualities  other  than  the 
one  indicated  by  the  predicate,  or  one  thought  of  as  more  essential 
than  the  predicate.  Only  in  the  first  of  these  two  instances  have  we 
the  properly  substantive  judgment  which  makes  the  generalization 
inductive  and  subject  to  the  determination  of  other  criteria  than  mere 
cognition  and  a  priori  generalization,  except  of  the  hypothetical  and 
formal  kind.  The  second  case  will  come  up  in  a  moment  for  consid- 
eration. What  I  have  first  to  complete  is  the  discussion  of  those 
instances,  like  "  Snow  is  white,"  in  which  there  is  an  identity  element 
involved  between  subject  and  predicate,  which  is  the  basis  of  the  gen- 
eralization so  evident  in  them.  As  remarked  above,  so  far  as  appre- 
hension is  concerned,  "snow"  and  "white"  are  identical,  and  the 
experience  "  white  "  will  always  be  the  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
subject  or  substance  asserted  in  perception  and  conperception,  as  well 
as  association  and  inference.  Consequently  in  our  representative  con- 
ception the  subject  and  predicate  will  be  identical  and  the  substantive 
idea  will  be  implied  only  on  question  as  to  the  full  import  of  the  term, 
and  then  be  only  indefinite,  as  we  found  in  the  example  of  "  iron." 
The  effect  of  this  in  all  cases  where  the  identification  of  the  subject,  that 
is,  the  discovery  of  it,  depends  on  the  apprehension  or  representation, 
Hume's  "  copy  of  impressions,"  or  where  the  subject  term  would  not  be 
used  unless  it  denoted  the  predicate  "  percept"  or  recept,  the  generaliza- 
tion is  safely  a  priori  and  necessary,  even  though  it  be  hypothetical,  as  it 
must  be.  It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  the  procedure  is  still  depen- 
dent upon  the  application  of  the  principle  of  identity,  so  that  this 
would  seem  to  be  the  one  condition  of  all  a  priori  necessary  judgments. 


222  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

In  the  second  class  of  subject  conceptions,  mentioned  above,  we 
have  the  most  important  instances  of  such  as  must  give  trouble  to  any 
assertion  of  a  priori  and  necessary  generalization.  They  are  impor- 
tant because  they  represent  propositions  in  a  way  to  make  it  apparently 
unnecessary  to  suppose  any  valid  conceptions  of  "  reality"  beyond  the 
phenomenal.  In  them  we  may  suppose  that  subject  terms  require  no 
other  meaning  for  their  use  in  substantive  and  intensive  judgments 
than  as  names  for  facts,  events,  phenomena,  or  "  experiences,"  just  as 
the  predicates  in  such  propositions  do.  These  subject  conceptions 
may  represent  facts  similar  to  or  diverse  from  the  predicate  and  corre- 
spondingly affect  the  question  of  generalization,  making  it  "  empirical  " 
or  a  priori,  as  the  case  may  be.     Let  me  resort  to  illustration. 

In  the  proposition  "gold  is  yellow  "  we  have  a  subject  concept 
which  we  may  conceive  either  as  a  substance  or  as  a  group  of  quali- 
ties. Suppose  we  say  that  these  properties  are  extreme  malleability, 
metallic  luster,  specific  gravity  of  19.40,  and  yellow  color.  Let  us 
call  these  B,  C,  D  and  E.  Let  me  use  A  for  the  substantive  import 
of  the  term.  We  could  then  say  in  terms  of  the  intensive  judgment  as 
defined  that  "  A  is  B  "  ;  "  A  is  C"  ;  "A  is  D"  ;  "  A  is  E."  But 
on  the  assumption  that  A  is  substantive  in  reality  we  could  not  say 
that  it  is  always  and  necessarily  either  B,  C,  D  or  E  individually  or 
these  collectively,  except  we  assume  the  identity  of  the  conditions 
which  make  it  these  in  any  given  case,  since  the  changes  of  substance 
in  its  modes  and  the  assumed  non-identity  of  the  connection  between 
subject  and  predicate  prevents  the  "  inference  "  or  generalization  uni- 
versally and  necessarily.  But  if  A  is  interpreted  as  identical  in  import 
with  BCDE  the  case  is  different.  That  is,  if  instead  of  having  the 
substantive  import  A  the  term  for  the  subject,  namely,  "  gold,"  mean 
BCDE,  then  the  proposition  becomes  a  priori  necessary,  but  tau- 
tological, as  in  every  case  where  the  subject  is  identical  absolutely  with 
the  predicate  in  its  import. 

But  the  fact  is  that  there  are  various  interpretations  of  such  judg- 
ments. First,  assuming  that  the  subject  is  the  name  for  a  group  of 
attributes,  the  proposition  escapes  a  tautological  meaning  when  we 
suppose  that  it  intends  to  emphasize  certain  instances  as  satisfactorily 
determinative  of  what  the  subject  is  or  means  and  the  predicate  appears 
as  a  synthetic  addition.  But  this  group  may  represent  different  attri- 
butes in  the  same  sensory  field  or  different  attributes  in  different  sen- 
sory fields,  and  this  distinction  may  be  a  matter  of  importance  in  the 
issue.  But  assuming  the  latter  first,  we  should  have  the  subject  BCD 
with  the  predicate  E.     Concretely  the  proposition  "  Gold  is  yellow" 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  223 

would  be,  "  BCD  is  E"  or  better,  "  Gold,"  that  is,  a  certain  specific 
gravity,  malleability,  and  metallic  lustre,  is  connected  with  a  yellow 
color.  Now  whether  that  connection  can  be  made  a  priori  or  not  will 
depend  on  certain  conditions.  As  specific  gravity  is  a  tactual  quality, 
and  is  considered  as  the  final  criterion  of  M  gold,"  as  compared  with 
other  "  realities,"  its  differential  and  essential  mark,  we  might  suppose 
that  "  gold"  meant  this  quality  and  that  the  assertion  that  '*  All  gold 
is  yellow  "  meant  that,  when  we  found  this  tactual  quality  present,  we 
might  safely  infer  the  presence  of  its  yellowness.  Now  I  must  con- 
tend that  we  can  do  nothing  of  the  sort  without  "  experience."  The 
perception  of  "  gold  "  considered  tactually  alone  with  the  specific 
gravity  concerned  will  permit  no  generalization  whatever,  except  with 
reference  to  this  tactual  percept  and  that  it  should  be  yellow  also  is  a 
purely  empirical  judgment,  and  no  a  priori  anticipation  of  other  sensory 
qualities,  previously  to  their  associated  presence  through  conperception, 
can  be  asserted.  Consequently  this  synthetic  character  of  the  judg- 
ment, as  explained,  makes  all  a  priori  necessary  generalization  a 
generalization  of  the  connection  between  the  subject  and  predicate,  as 
long  as  the  proposition  is  conceived  in  the  manner  indicated.  This  is 
briefly  stated  in  the  fact  that,  whenever  the  predicate  is  the  synthetic 
addition  of  another  sense  than  the  fact  or  facts  represented  by  the  sub- 
ject, the  judgment  cannot  be  a  priori  and  necessary  but  is  empirical 
only.  If  afterward  we  agree  that  the  subject  shall  be  attested  by  the 
synthetic  presence  of  all  these  various  properties  we  may  then  make 
the  subject  and  predicate  identical  in  meaning  by  means  of  definition. 
But  any  necessity  assumed  under  these  conditions  is  hypothetical  and 
dependent  upon  empirical  antecedents,  and  may  be  said  to  be  only 
logical.  I  think  the  same  general  treatment  can  be  applied  to  synthetic 
judgments  with  subject  and  predicate  represented  in  the  same  sensory 
"  experience."  The  connection  between  the  attributes  involved  must 
be  empirical,  if  they  do  not  embody  the  principle  of  identity  in  some 
way. 

Let  me  take  one  more  illustration  for  discussion,  the  example, 
**  Oranges  are  yellow."  This  again  is  a  judgment  in  which  the  sub- 
ject represents  a  group  of  attributes,  or  phenomena,  if  you  like,  assum- 
ing that  we  are  not  taking  the  term  in  a  substantive  sense.  Suppose, 
however,  instead  of  taking  the  group  of  qualities  into  account  here  we 
take  only  one,  that  of  taste,  or  peculiar  sapidity  which  is  supposed  to 
characterize  the  orange,  and  with  it  the  supposed  yellow  color.  Now 
if  we  mean  by  the  term  "  orange  "  this  peculiar  sapidity,  then  the 
predicate  is  not  identical  with  the  subject  and  the  proposition  only  indi- 


224  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

cates  connection  between  them.  In  saying  "  All  oranges  are  yellow  " 
we  simply  say  that  "  All  sapid  things  of  a  given  type  are  also  yellow," 
or  "All  cases  of  this  supposed  sapidity  are  also  associated  with  the 
color  yellow."  Now  apart  from  conperception  this  synthesis  of 
"  yellow  "  and  orange  sapidity  cannot  be  treated  as  necessary.  There 
is  no  reason  apart  from  conperception  for  supposing  that  they  would 
ever  be  connected  at  all,  and  hence  wre  cannot  a  priori  generalize  this 
connection  for  all  conditions,  other  than  hypothetically,  which  would 
only  mean  that  the  repetition  of  the  same  facts  would  give  the  same 
judgment,  a  conception  too  formal  to  be  of  any  value  in  regard  to  the 
question  at  issue,  which  is  the  necessary  connection  between  the  sub- 
ject and  predicate,  when  the  subject  means  something  different  from 
the  predicate.  What  is  actually  stated  and  without  qualification  as  to 
conditions  is  that  "  All  oranges  (cases  of  this  sapidity)  are  also- 
yellow,"  and  this  means  that  subject  and  predicate  are  not  identical 
but  connected.  The  primary  difficulty  is  in  the  equivocal  import  of 
the  copula  in  all  propositions,  if  we  assign  it  any  meaning  at  all.  In 
intensive  propositions  conceived  as  representing  the  connection  between 
substance  and  attribute  the  synthesis  is  not  of  kind  but  only  of  connec- 
tion, that  is,  does  not  imply  identity,  but  relation.  But  in  extensive 
propositions  the  synthesis  is  that  of  similar  realities  and  the  copula 
expresses  identity  of  some  kind.  Hence  we  must  say  either  the  copula 
has  no  meaning  in  a  sentence  or  it  takes  the  meaning  of  conceived  identity 
or  relation  between  subject  and  predicate.  Assuming  the  latter  as  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  mind  and  the  actual  meaning  of  half  the  pro- 
positions in  use  we  can  discover  a  source  of  equivocal  import  in  judg- 
ment generally  and  it  will  only  be  when  we  reckon  with  the  actual 
intention  of  the  judgment  that  we  can  determine  the  nature  of  the 
generalization.  When  the  subject  and  predicate  do  not  express  some 
kind  of  identity,  no  matter  whether  the  judgment  be  treated  as  exten- 
sive or  as  the  synthesis  of  phenomena  of  different  kinds,  as  in  cases- 
when  the  subject  is  conceived  as  one  phenomenon  and  the  predicate 
as  another,  the  generalization  can  never  be  a  priori  necessary,  but  must 
be  empirical.  We  could  not  infer  the  yellow  color  of  an  "orange" 
from  its  sapidity  alone  and  without  "  experience."  We  could  only 
generalize  the  color  by  making  it  at  least  one  of  the  "  essential"  attri- 
butes by  which  the  "  orange  "  should  be  known  as  well  as  by  the  peculiar 
sapidity  by  which  we  test  the  correctness  of  our  inference  when  we 
see  the  "  orange  "  without  tasting  it. 

But  this  allusion  to  "essential"  qualities  requires  us  to  examine 
what  the  term  means.     It  is  an  equivocal  term  again,  like  almost  all 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  225 

terms  having  any  philosophic  importance.  "  Essential  "  has  at  least 
two  distinct  meanings.  They  are  (1)  common  qualities,  and  (2) 
necessary  qualities.  Both  of  these  meanings  are  supposed  to  describe 
objects  ontologically,  that  is,  their  "nature."  It  should  be  noticed, 
however,  that  the  first  of  these  meanings  represents  matter  in  which 
the  objects  so  qualified  are  of  the  same  kind.  This  implies  that  when 
"  essence "  denotes  common  qualities  it  indicates  likeness  of  kind 
between  the  things  classified.  It  therefore  represents  a  conception  of 
the  principle  of  identity  as  I  have  defined  the  term  "  ontological." 
The  second  import  of  the  term,  however,  that  of  necessary,  does  not 
imply  identity  between  the  quality  called  "  necessary"  and  the  subject 
to  which  it  belongs.  It  indicates  only  that  the  connection  between 
subject  and  predicate  is  such  that  when  one  of  them  is  found  the  other 
will  be  present,  not  that  they  are  the  same  in  kind.  The  first  import 
is  the  principle  of  classification,  the  second  is  a  principle  of  cognition, 
The  first  is  "  ontological,"  the  second  is  epistemological,  the  one  ratio 
essendi,  and  the  other  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  the  subject.  When 
"  essence  "  denotes  the  common  qualities  it  involves  the  comparison  of 
different  (numero  diversa  at  least)  subjects  and  their  identity  in  kind. 
But  when  it  denotes  necessary  qualities  it  is  merely  the  test  of  apply- 
ing a  given  term  to  the  cognitive  subject  of  the  fact  in  "  experience," 
which  may  not  be  identical  with  the  predicate,  though  as  a  subject  it 
may  have  remained  "identical"  in  time;  that  is,  is  and  will  be  the 
same,  or  the  same  in  kind  with  the  subject  of  the  same  past  "  experi- 
ence." The  reason  for  thus  distinguishing  between  the  two  meanings 
of  the  term  "  essential"  is  the  fact  that  there  may  be  a  slight  differ- 
ence of  meaning  between  "  universal"  and  "  necessary,"  though  they 
are  often  made  convertible  with  each  other,  or  the  "  universal"  taken 
as  evidence  of  the  "  necessary."  But  as  we  can  conceive  a  quality  as 
"  universal  "  without  regarding  it  as  "  necessary,"  we  must  in  all  such 
cases  or  possibilities  regard  the  two  terms  as  not  exactly  synonymous. 
Thus  I  may  say  ' '  All  men  laugh  "  and  yet  not  suppose  for  a  moment 
that  the  capacity  to  laugh  is  a  "  necessary  "  quality  of  "man."  Of 
course,  if  "  necessary  "  means  no  more  than  actually  "  universal,"  this 
last  observation  will  not  hold  good.  But  as  we  are  in  the  habit  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  certain  universal  properties  as  "  accidental  "  and 
certain  others  as  "  essential,"  for  example,  regarding  vertebrateness  as 
more  "essential"  than  risibility  in  man,  we  find  it  important  to  dis- 
tinguish between  "essential"  as  merely  common  properties  and 
"  essential  "  as  "  necessary  "  qualities.  What  we  choose  to  regard  as 
"necessary"  qualities  may  be,  or  appear  to  be,  quite  arbitrary  when 


226  THE   PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

these  are  not  the  actually  universal  qualites,  if  such  a  thing  ever  hap- 
pens. It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  distinction  will  always  lie 
within  the  field  of  the  "universal"  qualities  and  only  indicate  that 
part  of  them  which  has  more  value  for  certain  purposes  than  others. 
This  suggests  that  quite  often  "  necessary"  carries  with  it  a  teleolog- 
ical  import  when  certain  "universal"  properties  may  have  only  an 
ontological  import  and  no  teleological,  and  also  no  gnosiological  or 
epistemological  significance  in  the  recognition  of  a  subject.  When  the 
"  essential"  properties  are  taken  as  the  evidence  of  the  subject,  they 
are  taken  in  that  narrow  meaning  which  makes  the  predicate  which 
they  denote  convertible  with  the  subject  in  formal  logic.  This  is  not 
necessarily  the  case  with  "  universals  "  merely.  "  Vertebrateness  " 
may  be  a  "  universal"  quality  of  man  and  also  of  other  beings,  so  that 
it  may  be  regarded  as  equally  "  essential"  to  man  and  certain  animals. 
But  there  maybe  "universal"  qualities  in  man  that  are  not  found 
elsewhere  and  hence  are  "essential"  to  man  in  a  more  fundamental 
sense.  This  is  the  differential  "  essence"  which  will  be  true  of  indi- 
viduals as  well  as  classes  or  genera.  When  the  "  essential  "  qualities 
are  so  conceived  they  make  subject  and  predicate  convertible  in  formal 
logic  and  in  "knowledge"  without  making  them  identical  in  kind. 
In  thus  considering  any  quality  as  "  necessary  "  or  "  essential"  to  the 
subject  we  only  indicate  our  intention  to  apply  the  subject  term  when- 
ever we  find  that  particular  predicated  in  "  experience."  That  is,  we 
make  this  particular  predicate  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  the  presence 
of  a  given  subject  or  subject  term,  and  the  constancy  of  the  former 
will  be  taken  as  evidence  of  the  constancy  of  the  latter.  Thus,  if  I 
assume  that  a  particular  kind  of  yellow  shall  be  treated  as  the  "  essen- 
tial "  quality  of  an  "  orange,"  I  shall  be  able  to  say  and  think  that 
"  All  oranges  are  and  must  be  yellow,"  because  in  the  conception  of 
"yellow"  I  have  indicated  my  intention  to  regard  it  as  the  invariable 
indication  of  the  subject  and  the  property  convertible  with  it  logically. 
It  thus  becomes  like  a  definition  in  which  subject  and  predicate  are 
identical  for  "  knowledge,"  whether  they  are  or  not  for  "  reality." 
This  is  to  say  that,  though  subjects  are  not  identical,  the  identity  of  the 
predicate  in  time  and  space,  its  constancy,  and  the  assumed  "  neces- 
sary" connection  or  "essentiality"  of  it  as  a  quality  of  the  subject, 
guarantee  the  identity  of  the  subject  in  time  and  space.  For  example, 
when  either  a  particular  sapidity  or  a  distinctive  yellow  is  taken  as  the 
criterial  quality  of  a  subject  to  be  named  "  orange,"  the  generalization, 
"  All  oranges  are  of  a  given  sapidity,"  or  "  All  oranges  are  yellow," 
will  be  necessarily  true,  not  because  the  subject  and  its  attribute  are 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  227 

identical  in  kind,  but  because  the  temporal  identity  of  the  predicate 
fact  or  phenomenon,  when  assumed  to  be  the  differential  essence  of  what 
shall  be  the  subject,  involves  the  same  identity  of  the  subject  as  a  cog- 
nitive object,  if  the  principle  of  causality  is  to  have  any  application  at 
all  to  phenomena.  Assuming  the  predicate  at  any  time  to  be  the  dif- 
ferential essence  is  only  to  say  that,  with  or  without  a  reason,  a  given 
fact  is  to  be  treated  as  the  evidence  of  a  subject  which  shall  be  the 
same  as  long  as  the  predicate  remains  the  same.  If  we  so  desire  we 
may  call  this  an  epistemological  identity  as  distinct  from  an  ontolog- 
ical  identity  which  is  found  only  in  extensive  propositions.  This 
so-called  epistemological  identity  is  not  one  of  kind,  but  only  one  of 
relation  or  constancy  of  connection,  and  this  suffices  to  determine  the 
generalization  and  to  make  it  a  priori  and  necessary  to  the  extent  of 
that  identity,  though  it  may  be  only  hypothetical,  as  it  depends,  not 
upon  the  identity  of  subject  and  predicate  in  kind,  but  upon  the  iden- 
tity of  the  predicate  in  time  and  space  and  the  uniformity  of  causation 
for  its  validity.  It  is  conditioned,  too,  by  the  assumption  of  the  pred- 
icate as  the  differential  essence  of  the  subject,  and  this  affiliates  the 
conception  to  that  of  a  definition  in  which  the  principle  of  identity, 
either  in  the  form  of  unity  or  similarity,  is  the  determining  factor  of 
thought,  and  where  this  prevails  in  any  form  the  generalization  may 
be  a  necessary  one  to  the  same  extent. 

The  real  difficulty  in  such  cases,  however,  is  in  the  fact  that  in  all 
judgments  involving  the  assumption  of  the  predicate  as  the  differential 
essence  of  the  subject,  where  it  is  the  common  quality  of  the  class  de- 
noted by  the  subject  and  the  property  distinguishing  this  subject  from 
all  others  at  the  same  time,  the  prius  in  "  knowledge"  is  the  predicate, 
while  in  all  other  propositions  the  prius  is  the  subject.  This  fact  en- 
ables us  to  analyze  the  problem  of  generalization  as  follows. 

In  all  mathematical  judgments  the  subject  is  intelligible  without 
stating  the  predicate  and  the  identity  between  it  and  any  predicate 
which  may  be  assumed,  as  it  is  determined  by  the  very  nature  of  such 
judgments,  is  the  guarantee  of  their  universal  necessity.  The  propo- 
sitions can  be  treated  as  and  are  extensive  judgments  in  which  the 
order  of  thought  is  subject  and  then  predicate.  In  definitions  the  same 
fact  is  seen  and  they  are  practically  and  logically  the  same  as  mathe- 
matical judgments. 

In  intensive  judgments  which  represent  the  relation  between  sub- 
stance and  attribute  the  possibility  of  a  priori  necessary  generalization 
is  purely  conditional.  The  permanence  of  substance  and  the  variability 
of  attributes  or  phenomena  make   the  relation   between  subject   and 


2  2S  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

predicate  an  empirical  one  to  "knowledge."  The  constancy  of  the 
subject  will  be  no  guarantee  for  the  constancy  of  the  predicate  as  this 
may  vary  indefinitely  with  the  persistence  of  the  same  subject.  What 
the  predicate  will  be  in  properly  intensive  judgments  is  never  a  priori 
determinable  from  the  mere  subject  conception  without  specifying  the 
conditions  under  which  the  subject  conception  is  viewed.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  there  are  several  limitations  to  the  ge  neralizations  in  this 
type  of  judgments. 

Firstly,  the  predicate  is  the  prius  in  "  knowledge  "  and  the  subject 
when  conceived  substantively  is  only  a  reflex  of  the  principle  of  caus- 
ality and  unless  the  predicate  remains  identical  in  space  and  time  no 
universality  and  necessity  is  possible,  even  though  the  subject  persists, 
as  both  must  be  constant  to  satisfy  the  conditions  of  judgment  in  the 
generalization.  Hence  phenomenal  identity  has  to  be  assumed  to 
justify  the  assertion  of  noumenal  identity  in  the  subject.  The  predi- 
cate idea  has  to  be  assumed  to  represent  the  essential  fact  in  the  meas- 
ure of  what  the  subject  shall  be  and  this  means  that,  for  the  purposes 
of  generalization,  the  subject  is  conceptually  identical,  either  as  unity 
or  similarity,  with  the  predicate,  and  the  principle  of  identity  becomes 
the  criterion  of  the  generalization.  In  any  other  view  of  it  the  rela- 
tion is  empirical  and  not  necessary. 

Secondly,  intensive  judgments  may  be  only  formally  such.  The 
subject  term  may  not  be  conceived  as  a  substantive  but  as  a  phenomenal 
term.  That  is,  instead  of  importing  substance  into  the  proposition  it 
may  mean  some  representative  phenomenon  or  experiential  fact  which 
is  not  the  reflex  of  causality  or  ground,  and  the  predicate  may  stand  for 
some  synthetically  connected  quality.  In  such  cases  the  subject  may 
be  the  prius  of  thought  and  the  relation  of  the  predicate  to  it  an 
inferred  one. 

Thus  "All  oranges  (sapid  quality)  are  yellow  (visual  quality)." 
The  relation  here  is  purely  empirical  and  never  necessary  as  the  result 
of  generalization  unconditionally  from  either  infero-apprehension  or 
conperception.  The  synthesis  is  itself  due  in  many  cases  to  association 
and  "  experience." 

Thirdly,  in  all  judgments,  whether  extensive  or  apparently  inten- 
sive, if  the  subject  is  simply  symbolical  or  representative  of  the  attribu- 
tive term  or  phenomenon  which  it  denotes,  thus  appearing  conceptually 
identical  with  it,  the  proposition  may  be  regarded  as  a  priori  neces- 
sary. Otherwise  it  is  not,  as  some  form  of  "  essential "  relation  has 
to  be  assumed  to  guarantee  the  right  to  assert  the  necessary  character 
of  the  generalization. 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  229 

In  conclusion  we  must  remark  that  the  fundamental  condition  of 
a  priori  necessary  generalized  judgments  will  be  the  identity  of  the 
subject  in  space  and  time.  But  there  is  no  guarantee  of  this  identity 
but  in  the  similar  identity  of  the  predicate  or  phenomenal  fact  in  space 
and  time.  If  this  latter  condition  is  not  fulfilled  in  reality  no  general- 
ization can  be  more  than  hypothetical  and  formal.  In  the  last  analysis 
we  have  found  that  it  is  always  the  predicate  that  represents  the  prius 
in  "  knowledge"  and  that  the  subject  is  the  reflex  of  the  principle  of 
causality,  since  extensive  judgments  are  reducible  to  intensive  in  their 
ultimate  interpretation.  Now  if  the  predicate  fact,  phenomenon,  or 
attribute  is  not  the  same  in  all  conditions  there  is  no  evidence  that  the 
subject  will  be  the  same,  though  it  actually  be  so  in  fact.  Now  in 
mathematical  judgments  the  predicate  requires  for  its  realization 
nothing  more  than  space  and  time.  These  are  severally  homogeneous 
constants,  whether  as  principles  of  continuity  or  principles  of  indi- 
viduation, and  consequently  assure  the  constancy  of  the  concepts  which 
may  furnish  the  predicate  of  propositions,  while  the  quantitative  and 
qualitative  identity  (difference  in  negative  judgments)  assures  the 
necessary  identity  between  subject  and  predicate  to  make  the  general- 
ized judgment  universally  necessary,  a  priori  necessary  both  formally 
and  really.  But  in  substantive  judgments  only  "  experience  "  can 
determine  the  extent  of  the  constancy,  or  identity  in  space  and  time,  of 
the  predicate  or  phenomenal  fact  for  which  the  predicate  stands,  and 
hence  the  generalization  can  only  be  formally  and  hypothetically  neces- 
sary, in  so  far  as  they  are  the  immediate  extension  of  judgment  on  the 
occasion  of  perception  and  conperception,  or  of  apperception.  Even 
then,  it  is  conditioned  upon  the  assumption  of  "essential"  qualities 
which  will  determine  the  empirical  import  of  substantive  terms  and 
only  indicate  that  the  predicate  phenomenon  is  the  ratio  cognoscendi, 
not  the  ratio  essendi  of  the  subject  in  the  ordinary  ontological  sense, 
the  necessary  connection  being  contingent  upon  the  constancy  of  the 
predicate  phenomenon  and  the  uniformity  of  causation.  The  con- 
sequence is  that,  outside  of  mathematical  judgments,  all  generalizations 
of  an  a  priori  and  necessary  kind  must  be  of  a  formal  type  and  depend 
upon  some  form  of  the  principle  of  identity  assumed  between  subject 
and  predicate.  Apart  from  this  condition  they  are  empirical,  or  their 
universality  is  factual  and  not  "  necessary."  This  makes  it  apparent 
that  the  field  of  a  priori  necessary  judgment  is  a  narrow  one  and  that 
we  have  yet  to  explain  that  of  empirical  generalization  and  its  relation 
to  the  a  priori.  This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  Scientific 
Method  as  a  criterion  of  truth. 


230  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

III.    Scientific  Method. 

I  have  discussed  three  forms  of  "  knowledge,"  namely,  Logic, 
Immediate  Consciousness,  and  Generalization.  The  first  was  said 
only  to  transmit  certitude,  not  to  originate  it.  The  second  indicated 
the  sources  of  two  types  of  certain  "  knowledge,"  one  of  them  presen- 
tation or  apprehension  in  which  the  "knowledge"  is  not  synthetic, 
and  the  other  Cognition  which  is  synthetic,  that  is,  simultaneously 
apprehension  and  the  application  of  a  principle  of  cognition  to  it  re- 
lating it  to  something  else  than  itself,  and  giving  the  first  form  of  inter- 
pretative conceptions.  It  was  like  apprehension,  however,  limited  to 
the  present  state  of  consciousness  in  the  range  of  its  assertion,  though 
adding  to  apprehension  a  conception  of  "  objectivity."  The  third 
form,  generalization,  extended  judgments  so  as  to  universalize  them 
and  to  assume  or  assert  the  necessity  of  at  least  some  of  them.  But  in 
many  cases  this  generalization  was  conditional,  and  it  left  out  of  ac- 
count those  generalizations  which  could  not  represent  "  necessary " 
truth,  but  which  are  conceived  as  more  or  less  probable,  even  when 
associated  with  a  certitude  of  feeling  which  could  not  easily  be  distin- 
guished from  convictions  that  we  do  not  represent  as  probable.  This 
class  of  cognitions  or  judgments  have  a  modality  representing  less  co- 
hesiveness  and  inexpugnability  of  conviction  than  those  associated  with 
absolute  certitude  and  necessity,  which  were  represented  in  apprehen- 
sion, cognition  and  some  instances  of  generalization  of  the  a  friori 
kind.  This  body  of  "  knowledge,"  if  that  term  can  be  used  to  denom- 
inate it,  whose  modality  is  probability  of  some  kind  or  degree,  is  a 
large  one  and  is  very  complex  in  the  nature  of  its  genesis  and  content. 
It  consists  of  what  may  be  called  associational  or  inferential  syntheses 
and  empirical  generalizations.  Their  nature  and  degree  of  validity  are 
subject  to  what  is  called  "  scientific  method."  This  conception  will 
have  to  be  examined  with  some  care. 

"  Science  "  and  "  philosophy  "  in  a  very  common  usage,  have  the 
two  meanings  which  are  defined  by  the  terms  "  Induction  "  and  "  De- 
duction." This  distinction  between  them  came  about  by  the  associa- 
tion of  their  activities  with  the  methods  that  described  them.  The 
Scholastic  period,  dominated  wholly  by  the  philosophy  and  logic  of 
Aristotle,  was  introspective  and  deductive  in  its  methods.  The  revolt 
against  it,  formulated  by  Bacon,  but  initiated  by  many  others  like 
Copernicus,  Galileo  and  Kepler,  was  described  as  inductive  and  extro- 
spective.  This  opposition  of  their  methods  resulted  in  very  much 
determining  the  distinction  between  the  two  fields  of  reflection,  so  that 
the  expression  "  scientific   method"  came   to  be  synonymous  with  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  231 

idea  of  "  induction  "  and  opposed  to  that  of  "  deduction,"  and  as 
"  deduction  "  was  uniformly  regarded  as  a  mode  of  ratiocination,  so 
also  was  "  induction,"  and  "  scientific  method  "  is  often  made  inter- 
changeable with  this  idea.  Let  us  examine  briefly  how  this  came  to 
occur. 

The  whole  scholastic  movement  was,  as  I  have  remarked,  under 
the  influence  of  the  Logic  of  Aristotle.  Its  whole  conception  of  the 
problem  of  "  knowledge  "  was  determined  by  this  fact.  The  period 
had  abandoned  the  study  of  nature,  as  I  mentioned  earlier,  because  the 
world  in  which  it  was  interested  was  superphysical  as  well  as  super- 
sensible, and  its  organon  of  truth  regarding  it  was  faith  until  it  found 
it  necessary  to  "prove"  its  faith.  The  realization  of  this  need  intro- 
duced the  application  of  Artistotle's  Logic,  the  study  of  nature 
"inductively"  not  being  supposed  to  be  necessary.  Its  method, 
therefore,  was  the  syllogism.  All  "  knowledge  "  certifying  faith  had 
thus  to  be  ratiocinatively  determined.  Deductive  logic  became  the 
supreme  and  only  organon  of  truth  and  "  knowledge."  The  effect 
was  to  substitute  "  reason"  or  reasoning  for  faith  and  authority,  but 
for  us  the  point  to  be  noticed  with  emphasis  is  the  fact  that  scholastic 
conception  of  method  was  deductive  reasoning.  Now  it  soon  became 
apparent  to  men  like  Bacon  that  this  process  only  proved  accepted 
beliefs  and  did  not  originate  them.  As  I  have  endeavored  to  show,  it 
only  transmitted  conviction  either  from  proposition  to  proposition  or 
from  person  to  person  and  does  not  originate  it.  I  remarked  also, 
what  is  universally  admitted  by  students  of  logic,  that  the  syllogism 
cannot  prove  itself  and  that,  ultimately,  the  premises  have  to  be  deter- 
mined by  some  other  process  than  the  deductive,  and  I  think,  by  non- 
ratiocinative  processes  altogether.  Mill  thought  the  basis  of  deductive 
reasoning  was  inductive.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  the 
deductive  syllogism  adds  no  new  content  to  "  knowledge  "  but  only 
systematizes  what  we  have  and  transmits  conviction  from  the  general 
to  the  particular  case.  It  was  this  peculiarity  of  its  function  that 
disgusted  Bacon  with  the  Aristotelian  logic.  He  saw  clearly  enough 
that  it  added  no  new  "  knowledge,"  as  material  content,  to  our  stock 
of  truth.  Hence  he  and  his  disciples  set  up  "  induction  "  to  effect  this 
result.  The  term  had  been  known  and  used  before,  as  a  mode  of  rea- 
soning opposed  to  the  "  deductive,"  but  this  idea  had  dropped  into 
desuetude,  owing  to  the  causes  which  disinterested  mankind  in  the 
study  of  the  physical  world.  But  the  intellectual  habits  of  the  scho- 
lastic period  were  not  wholly  abandoned,  even  when  the  new  move- 
ment in  the  revival  of  "  science  "  found  it  necessary  to  introduce  a 


232  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

new  method  of  "  knowledge,"  as  Bacon  and  his  followers  still 
regarded  their  method  of  discovery  a  process  of  ratiocination.  The 
opposition  between  "  reason"  and  faith  tended  to  produce  this  effect. 
When  the  latter  was  questioned  as  to  the  ultimate  source  of  truth  in 
any  matter  whatever,  it  was  natural  to  accept  "reason"  and  the 
equivocations  of  this  term  easily  lent  their  support  to  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  term  "  induction,"  which,  as  representing  the  study  of  the 
physical  world,  quite  naturally  suggested  opposition  to  faith  as  well  as 
to  "  deduction,"  and  so  identified  its  import  with  the  function  of 
"reason"  which  was  so  *  generally  associated  with  ratiocination. 
Hence  both  the  older  use'-«*-the  older  meaning  of  the  term  "induc- 
tion "  and  the  habits  of  the  age  treated  that  idea  as  a  ratiocinative  one. 
At  the  same  time  the  exigencies  of  the  problems  of  new  inquiries  and 
discoveries  and  experiments  sufficed  to  carry  into  the  term  all  the  con- 
ditions and  assumptions  associated  with  what  now  passes  for  "  sci- 
entific method,"  which  represents  much  more  than  mere  reasoning. 
Consequently  the  term  "  induction"  represents  two  distinct  meanings. 
The  first  is  that  of  a  mode  of  ratiocination  opposed  to  "  deductive," 
and  the  second  all  those  processes  which  are  necessary  to  the  acquisi- 
tion and  verification  of  new  "  knowledge."  The  peculiar  character- 
istic of  deduction  is  that  we  can  never  get  beyond  the  premises  in 
what  we  infer.  It  is  this  circumstance  that  insures  certitude  in  the 
conclusion  when  all  the  formal  conditions  of  the  syllogism  have  been 
satisfied  and  the  premises  are  accepted.  The  fundamental  feature  of 
inductive  reasoning  is  that  it  takes  us  beyond  the  premises  and  at  least 
appears  to  supply  new  "  knowledge."  It  is  this  fact  that  prevents  it 
from  giving  assurance  of  a  positive  kind  to  the  inference  so  drawn. 
But  it  was  the  historical  restitution  of  the  study  of  nature  that  deter- 
mined the  conception  of  the  term  for  the  modern  mind  and  not  its 
formally  ratiocinative  character,  so  that  it  came  to  mean  any  process 
other  than  introspection  and  deductive  reasoning  and  so  the  source  of 
new  "  knowledge."  Consequently  there  was  confusion  between  its 
import  as  a  ratiocinative  process  which  was  distinct  and  opposed  to 
deduction  and  its  import  as  "scientific  method"  which  included 
deduction. 

The  best  illustration  of  this  confusion  is  Mill's  "  Logic."  This 
work  is  in  fact  not  a  treatise  on  formal  logic  at  all.  It  is  a  presenta- 
tion of  scientific  method  which  may  include  at  least  a  part  of  logic. 
Mill  seems  never  to  have  understood  what  the  science  of  logic  was 
and  what  it  was  intended  for.  With  Bacon  and  his  school  he  saw 
clearly  enough  that  deductive  method  could  never  determine  for  us  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  233 

laws  of  nature  and  that,  when  the  acceptance  of  the  premises  was 
concerned,  deduction  could  not  ultimately  certify  them.  Hence  he 
dismisses  the  subject  of  deduction  with  very  short  shrift  in  his  work, 
maintaining  that  the  process  was  wholly  subordinate  to  induction  and 
that  its  premises  were  derived  from  induction.  This  view  will  be 
true  or  false  according  to  the  wider  or  narrow  meaning  of  the  term. 
If  "  induction  "  be  synonymous  with  scientific  method  which  includes 
all  processes  of  apprehension,  cognition  and  "experience,"  in  other 
words,  all  the  non-ratiocinative  functions,  the  doctrine  is  quite  accept- 
able. But  if  it  is  limited  to  the  "  inductive"  ratiocinative  process,  it 
ean  easily  be  shown  to  be  inadequate.  This  is  apparent  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  process.  As  ratiocination,  "  induction"  is  coordi- 
nate with  "  deduction  "  and  cannot  be  supposed  to  supply  the  latter's 
premises.  Then  again  it  is  noticeable  that  deductive  reasoning  trans- 
mits certitude  from  premise  to  conclusion,  while  inductive  reasoning 
cannot  transmit  any  such  quality  to  its  conclusion.  If  it  supplies  the 
premises  of  deduction  and  can  support  no  assured  truth  the  deductive 
process  is  incapable  of  supplying  it  because  it  does  not  receive  it  from 
the  inductive  result.  Now  Mill  tries  to  prove  his  case  by  deductive 
reasoning  which  his  own  theory  maintains  is  not  valid  except  as  based 
upon  induction,  and  as  this  affords  no  assured  truth  he  must  admit 
that  his  argument  is  worthless.  What  Mill  ought  to  have  seen  was, 
that  the  premises  of  both  inductive  and  deductive  reasoning  were  fur- 
nished by  non-ratiocinative  processes  altogether  and  not  that  one  of 
them  was  the  basis  of  the  other.  His  actual  discussion  of  scientific 
method  in  its  use  of  observation  showed  that  this  view  of  the  case  was 
implicit  in  his  system  and  that  it  contradicted  the  attitude  taken 
toward  deduction  as  dependent  upon  induction,  in  so  far  as  the  reader 
would  understand  that  he  was  speaking  of  a  reasoning  process.  But 
the  fact  is  that  Mill  was  not  clear  in  his  use  of  the  term.  He  played 
fast  and  loose  between  "  induction "  as  a  ratiocinative  process  and 
"induction"  as  scientific  method  including  much  more  than  rea- 
soning. 

The  function  of  deduction  is  to  transmit  certitude  and  necessity  : 
the  function  of  induction  is  to  transmit  probability.  The  only  reason 
that  it  cannot  do  what  deduction  does  is  the  fact  that  its  conclusion  is 
not  quantitatively  involved  in  the  premises  as  in  deduction.  There  is 
no  "objective"  test  of  the  reasoning  as  in  deduction.  It  is  only 
"  subjective."  There  is  identity  recognized  in  the  premises,  but  there 
is  no  indication  that  this  identity  is  inclusive  or  that  it  involves  the 
essential  qualities  of  the  data  concerned.     Consequently  the  inference 


234  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

is  not  assured,  but  will  have  a  probability  proportioned  to  a  rather 
indeterminate  set  of  conditions  "objectively"  considered.  In  both 
deduction  and  induction  there  is  anticipation  of  "  experience  "  or  the 
future.  The  process  might  be  called  "a  priori"  in  both  forms  of 
reasoning,  only  that  the  conclusion  is  not  necessary  in  one  of  them. 
The  strict  import  of  "  a  priori"  is  only  anticipa*e*yand  not  necessity. 
In  both  cases  the  reasoning  does  not  represent  the"  phenomenal  realiza- 
tion of  the  facts  which  the  conclusion  expresses,  but  the  prospective 
realization  of  them  when  the  conditions  are  fulfilled  in  "  experience." 
In  one  it  is  the  necessity  of  this  occurrence  and  in  the  other  its  proba- 
bility. They  forecast  the  hypothetical  certainty  or  probability  that 
"  experience"  will  be  the  same  for  the  future  as  for  the  present  and 
past.  The  inference  in  deduction  represents  a  necessary  truth,  but  not 
the  necessary  occurrence  of  the  facts  which  would  involve  its  phenom- 
enal realization  in  the  future.  The  inductive  inference  is  probable  in 
the  same  sense.  We  might  call  them  both  "  Anteperception,"  as 
indicating  that  they  anticipate  "  experience,  that  is,  are  related  to  the 
future  in  the  same  way  that  reapprehension  or  Memory  is  related  to 
the  past,  except  that  they  are  in  no  way  categorical  in  their  factual 
implications.  But  it  is  apparent  that  both  must  derive  the  character 
as  well  as  the  matter  of  their  premises  by  non-ratiocinative  processes. 
This  fact  forces  us  to  base  all  scientific  method  upon  some  other  basis 
than  "  induction  "  as  a  reasoning  function.  It  can  have  importance  only 
as  comprehending  processes  of  acquisition  antecedent  to  all  forms  of 
inference.  These  are  the  primary  processes  already  discussed  and 
they  condition  all  systematizing  functions.  Scientific  method  thus 
becomes  the  sum  of  all  processes  involved  in  the  acquisition  and  veri- 
fication of  "  knowledge,"  whether  of  the  necessary  or  probable  sort. 
It  can  have  no  opposition  to  "  deduction"  except  to  that  claim  that 
deductive  ratiocination  is  the  only  source  of  "  knowledge."  "  Deduc- 
tion "  is  not  the  whole,  but  a  part  of  the  whole  and  scientific  method 
includes  it  as  one  of  its  functions. 

There  is  a  fact  in  the  progress  of  scientific  development  which 
conceals  this  inclusiveness  of  what  is  meant  by  "  scientific  method" 
when  strictly  defined.  It  is  the  circumstance  that  when  what  is  usu- 
ally understood  to  be  "  scientific  method"  is  applied  there  has  already 
been  the  acquisition  of  much  "knowledge"  which  is  simply  called 
"  experience."  In  the  books  "  scientific  method  "  is  made  convertible 
with  the  formulation  and  application  of  certain  rules  indicating  how 
we  acquire  and  verify  certain  inferential  truths  and  little  or  no  stress 
is  laid  upon  the  simple  and  primary  processes  which  condition  the 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  235 

more   complex  acquisition  of  "knowledge,"  involving  all   the  more 
elementary  functions  without  our  explicit  recognition  of  them. 

There  is  another  confusion  in  the  use  of  the  terms  "  scientific 
method  "  which  grows  out  of  the  antagonisms  bred  by  the  controver- 
sies between  scholastic  philosophy  with  its  alleged  introspective  and 
"  a  priori'"  or  deductive  methods.  "  Inductive  "  method  in  supplanting 
the  "deductive"  claimed  only  to  supply  "empirical  knowledge" 
and  to  limit  "  a  priori  knowledge  "  to  the  formal  process  of  the  syl- 
logism, if  it  admitted  anything  at  all  in  this  process.  In  this  way 
"  empirical  "  came  to  stand  for  "  inductive  "  methods  and  the  "  a  pri- 
ori" for  the  "deductive"  and  introspective.  This  tendency  and 
development  of  conceptions  tacitly  omits  the  consideration  of  all  those 
processes  of  certain  "knowledge"  which  are  prior  to  all  inferential 
functions  and  includes  only  the  possible,  probable  and  conjectural 
generalizations  of  "  experience,"  involving  suspense  of  judgment  on 
all  assertions  beyond  this  "experience"  and  tending,  in  so  far  as 
"  inductive "  excludes  certainty  and  necessity  of  all  kinds,  to  either 
interpret  the  idea  of  "experience"  as  more  or  less  dubitative  or  to 
define  the  area  of  "induction"  as  representing  the  conjectural  field 
beyond  "  experience"  and  holding  conviction  in  abeyance  until  some 
mode  of  verification  could  assure  the  truth.  This  simply  means  that 
the  "  empiricist  "  plays  fast  and  loose  between  the  terms  "  experience  " 
and  "  induction."  Where  the  former  is  assumed  to  give  certain 
"  knowledge,"  the  latter  has  to  be  confined  to  probable  inferences  and 
generalization  beyond  the  mnemonic  type  or  simple  enumeration. 
But  where  "  induction  "  is  in  any  way  made  convertible  with  "  experi- 
ence," instead  of  being  merely  based  upon  it  and  proceeding  beyond 
it,  and  "  experience "  is  assumed  to  give  any  certain  "knowledge," 
the  term  broadens  into  the  larger  conception  of  scientific  method  and 
cannot  be  opposed  to  "  deduction"  because  it  does  not,  in  this  wider 
meaning,  limit  its  import  to  ratiocinative  action.  If  any  clear  thinking 
is  to  be  done  in  connection  with  the  use  of  the  term  "  induction,"  it  is 
apparent  from  this  that  the  equivocation  in  its  usage  must  be  corrected, 
as  it  cannot  do  service  for  both  ' '  scientific  method "  and  the  mere 
inductive  inference  which  is  a  very  small  part  of  that  method.  Hence 
with  the  choice  of  terms  I  shall  limit  the  term  ' '  induction  "  to  the 
inference  by  that  name  and  employ  the  expression  "  scientific  method" 
to  denote  the  complex  processes  and  conditions  regulating  the  pro- 
cedure known  as  "  science,"  as  distinct  from  mere  introspection  of  the 
mind's  conceptions.  This  method  can  be  applied  to  mental  phenom- 
ena as  well  as  the  physical,  and  even  to  introspection.     But  it  has 


236  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

developed  as  a  method  in  the  investigation  of  physical  phenomena 
and  contrasts  with  mere  introspection  and  a  priori  speculation  in  its 
curtailment  of  dogmatism  and  in  its  emphasis  upon  experiment. 
Otherwise  it  in  fact  includes  introspection  and  deduction  as  means 
respectively  of  analyzing  conceptions  and  of  verifying  discovery  or 
systematizing  "  knowledge." 

But  there  are  two  important  qualifications  which  are  necessary  in 
the  definition  of  "  scientific  method."  The  first  is  that  it  is  as  much 
occupied  with  belief  as  with  "  knowledge."  The  latter  term  is  gener- 
ally used  in  a  sufficiently  comprehensive  sense  to  include  belief,  as  it 
is  often  made  convertible  with  systematization,  and  belief  is  this.  I 
shall  therefore  employ  the  term  often  to  comprehend  all  of  the  convic- 
tions which  the  mind  forms  by  "  scientific  method,"  whether  necessary 
or  probable.  When  it  is  required  to  distinguish  carefully  the  kind  of 
"  knowledge  "  involved  in  any  particular  case  I  shall  specify  it.  But 
it  must  be  understood  that  in  the  general  examination  of  the  functions 
of  "  scientific  method  "  I  shall  have  both  "  knowledge"  and  belief  in 
mind  in  the  use  of  the  single  term,  unless  otherwise  indicated.  The 
second  qualification  of  its  scope  is  that  which  confines  it  to  the  more 
advanced  reflective  stage  of  intellectual  development.  By  this  I  mean 
to  say  that  I  shall  lay  no  emphasis  upon  the  elementary  processes  of 
"knowledge"  in  the  definition  of  its  province.  It  is  true  that  all  the 
primary  functions  of  "  knowledge  "  are  necessarily  involved  in  the  ap- 
plication of  "  scientific  method  "  and  must  be  constantly  deferred  to  in 
all  advanced  stages  of  investigation.  But  "  scientific  method,"  as  it 
characterizes  the  conscious  and  reflective  or  experimental  period  of  in- 
quiry, may  be  discussed  without  further  allusion  to  these  primary  proc- 
esses than  a  reference  to  what  has  been  said  in  a  previous  chapter,  and 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  present  chapter  which  has,  so  far,  been  occu- 
pied with  the  criteria  of  assured  "  knowledge,"  and  of  that  type  which 
comes  spontaneously  and  is  not  necessarily  instigated  voluntarily  and 
experimentally. 

I  cannot  here  discuss  the  subject  of  Scientific  Method  on  a  large  scale 
or  as  fully  as  it  needs  to  be  discussed.  It  would  require  a  large  volume 
for  that  purpose.  It  will  suffice,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  to  refer  to 
the  works  of  Mill,  Sigwart,  Whewell,  Wundt  and  others,  to  indicate 
the  manner  in  which  I  should  proceed  to  deal  with  the  subject  both  in 
principles  and  illustrations.  I  may  therefore  refer  to  their  works  as 
making  it  unnecessary  to  develop  the  subject  anew  and  as  sufficiently  ac- 
ceptable in  their  conception  of  method,  whatever  be  thought  of  their 
philosophic  assumptions,  to  make  elaborate  discussion  superfluous  here. 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  237 

But  before  outlining  its  general  principles  it  is  important  to  notice 
a  few  fundamental  characteristics  which  define  the  main  purpose  of 
Scientific  Method  and  so  determine  its  actual  applications.  While  it 
may  be  said  to  determine  the  conditions  of  all  "  knowledge  "  whatever, 
it  formulates  its  rules  with  reference  to  the  more  advanced  stages  of 
intellectual  growth.  Hence  it  appears  less  as  a  method  of  accumulating 
data  than  a  means  of  estimating  the  material  of  earlier  acquisition.  The 
reason  for  this  is  quite  simple.  Its  history  has  been  associated  with  the 
discovery  of  new  truth  rather  than  the  teaching  and  proof  of  the  old. 
The  scholastic  period  and  its  non-progressive  methods  illustrated  the 
poverty  of  everything  in  material  knowledge  but  what  is  called  "  scien- 
tific method,"  and  hence  the  emancipation  from  the  inertia  of  deductive 
procedure,  naturally  carried  with  it  the  idea  that  it  was  not  the  possession 
of  the  existing  body  of  truth  that  required  the  attention  of  science  but  the 
acquisition  of  new  "  knowledge."  Consequently,  when  any  question 
of  evidence  or  proof  for  new  discoveries  was  raised  the  only  source  for 
the  defendant  was  to  produce  a  new  organon  to  take  the  place  of  the 
old  and  this  assumed  the  name  of  "  scientific  method  "  in  contrast  with 
the  philosophic  and  introspective  speculations  of  the  preceding  age. 
What  this  influence  effects  is  a  tendency  to  conceive  and  represent  the 
work  of  "  scientific  method  "  as  chiefly  occupied  with  the  certification 
of  "  experience."  This  ascribes  to  it,  as  its  most  important  function, 
the  application  of  means  for  testing  and  certifying  the  inferences  which 
arise  on  the  occasion  of  various  "  experiences."  It  thus  becomes  pre- 
dominantly a  method  of  determining  the  degree  of  certitude  or  proba- 
bility with  which  generalizations  can  be  accepted.  The  primary  in- 
terest of  man  is  in  generalization,  which  represents  what  is  true  for  all 
space  and  time.  In  fact  "  truth"  of  any  kind  has  value  precisely  in 
proportion  to  its  connotation  for  universality.  We  generally  mean  by 
it  what  holds  good  beyond  the  present  place  and  moment.  Any  pres- 
ent event  or  "experience"  which  leaves  our  existence  unharmed  has 
no  such  interest  for  us  as  the  future  possibilities  of  change  may  have 
for  the  disturbance  of  our  plans  and  ideals.  What  our  hopes,  whether 
practical,  ethical,  or  religious,  require  for  their  realization  is  some  sta- 
bility in  the  order  of  things  and  some  confidence  in  our  judgments.  We 
wish  and  need  to  know  what  the  certainties  or  probabilities  of  the  future 
will  be  in  order  to  justify  action  with  reference  to  the  realization  of  our 
ideals.  Consequently  we  must  know  when  an  inference  or  an  expecta- 
tion is  founded  on  a  reasonable  probability  that  nature  will  be  uniform 
and  that  there  is  some  "  truth  "  beyond  the  phenomenal  present,  some 
generalizations  on  which  expectation   and  hope  can  be  based.     The 


23S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

consequence  of  this  is  that  "  scientific  method  "  seems  to  be  primarily 
concerned  with  the  results  of  all  those  processes  which  are  embodied 
in  our  inferences  from  phenomena.  But  it  is  in  fact  occupied  with  the 
determination  of  the  data  upon  which  inferences  can  be  made  and  which 
also  aid  in  the  verification  of  inferences  when  once  made.  Whatever 
its  relation  to  primary  judgments  it  thus  becomes  preeminently  occupied 
with  what  are  called  "  empirical  "  generalizations  and  the  efforts  to  test 
them  or  to  give  them  the  character  of  more  certain  "  knowledge." 

I  may  therefore  define  Scientific  Method  as  the  rational  mode  of 
procedure  by  which  we  regulate  the  acquisition  and  verification  of 
conviction,  of  "knowledge"  and  belief.  I  distinguish  between 
acquisition  and  verification,  not  because  the  method  of  validating 
them  is  different,  but  because  they  supply  different  elements  of  the 
complex  whole  in  "  knowledge."  Acquisition  is  primarily  concerned 
with  the  discovery  of  facts  and  especially  with  new  matter  or  content, 
and  verification  with  the  certification  of  the  judgments  formed  on  the 
occasion  of  acquisition.  Acquisition  increases  content,  verification 
increases  conviction.  But  while  the  same  general  principles  regulate 
the  procedure  in  both  cases,  it  may  be  convenient  to  treat  them  as  if 
they  were  distinct  from  each  other  in  their  relation  to  method  simply 
to  recognize  the  fact  just  mentioned.  With  this  established  we  may 
proceed  to  analyze  the  problem  more  fully.  Such  an  analysis  will 
involve  two  questions.  The  first  is  the  Processes  characterizing 
Scientific  Method,  and  the  second  is  the  Principles  of  Scientific 
Method. 

I.    Processes  of  Scientific  Method. 

The  several  processes  involved  in  the  determination  of  "  knowl- 
edge "  as  here  considered  may  be  enumerated  as  Observation,  Experi- 
ment, Classification,  Explanation,  Hypothesis,  and  Verification. 
These,  however,  I  think  can  be  somewhat  simplified,  and  possibly  be 
reduced  to  three  types,  if  the  terms  are  properly  defined,  namely, 
Acquisition,  Explanation,  and  Verification.  As  they  have  been 
enumerated  above,  it  is  noticeable  that,  as  processes,  they  do  not 
necessarily  follow  each  other  chronologically,  but  will  be  related  to 
each  other  according  to  the  various  contingencies  of  phenomena. 
Thus  experiment  might  not  be  resorted  to  at  all  and  in  individual 
cases  explanation  might  not  depend  in  any  way  upon  classification. 
They  are  consequently  elements  in  the  problem  that  are  determined  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  case,  some  of  them  being  the  resource  in  certain 
emergencies  and  others  in  different  circumstances.  Moreover  classi- 
fication is  often  regarded  as  a  mode  of  explanation.     Phenomena  are 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  239 

often  regarded  as  intelligible  when  they  are  seen  to  belong  to  a  known 
class  which  is  presumably  explained.  Consequently  for  general  pur- 
poses I  may  reduce  the  processes  involved  in  scientific  method  to  three 
types,  making  observation  and  experiment  subdivisions  of  acquisition, 
and  classification  and  causifi cation  subdivisions  of  explanation,  with 
hypothesis  and  verification  remaining,  the  former  the  means  and  the 
latter  the  proof  of  explanation. 

1.  Acquisition.  —  This  process  represents  all  those  primary 
agencies  by  which  conceptions  and  facts  are  ascertained  and  which 
are  the  phenomena  or  material  for  the  application  of  explanation  and 
verification.  I  need  not  enter  into  any  elaborate  analysis  of  it  after 
what  has  been  said  of  the  primary  and  elementary  agencies  in  "  knowl- 
edge." The  part  of  observation  is  to  embody  these  functions.  What 
it  is  and  does  I  shall  not  define  or  discuss  but  leave  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  reader  who  can  consult  the  works  referred  to  above. 
Including  apprehension,  perception,  conperception,  apperception, 
ratiocination,  infero-apprehension,  consociation,  etc.,  as  determinative 
of  the  data  for  investigation,  its  distinctive  character  consists  in  its  use 
of  attention  and  voluntary  effort  to  acquire  more  than  merely  casual 
41  experience"  would  present,  and  in  its  implication  that  the  subject 
observer  is  a  mere  spectator  of  phenomena  which  he  does  not  himself 
produce,  but  which,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  spontaneously  occur  in 
the  order  of  nature.  Experiment  is  the  artificial  production  of  phe- 
nomena combined  with  observation.  It  employs  the  intervention  of  the 
human  will  and  other  agencies  to  produce  phenomena  which  might 
not  spontaneously  occur  in  nature  or  to  repeat  and  multiply  those 
which  may  casually  occur  and  thus  increases  the  chance  for  careful 
observation.  It  endeavors  to  reproduce  phenomena,  with  fewer  com- 
plications than  such  as  might  naturally  accompany  "  experience." 
But  both  experiment  and  observation  are  concerned  in  the  discovery  of 
facts,  of  phenomena  or  events,  which  are  the  data  of  explanation. 

2.  Explanation.  — Briefly  defined  explanation  is  simply  the  con- 
scious application  of  the  categories  to  facts.  Cognition  as  a  primary 
process  of  "  knowledge  "  may  not  represent  any  consciousness  of  the 
principles  applied  to  apprehensions  or  phenomena.  It  is,  so  to  speak, 
instinctive  or  intuitive,  an  unanalyzed  mode  of  thought  when  the  process 
first  occurs.  But  explanation  represents  the  reflective  stage  of  thought 
when  the  ideas  of  kind  and  of  causality  have  become  conscious  objects 
of  "  knowledge,"  and  so  applies  them  with  reference  to  some  particu- 
lar conception  of  kind  or  cause  as  distinct  from  the  general  or  abstract 
conception  which  has  the  character  of  an  ultimate  assumption,  repre- 


240  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

senting  a  condition  of  thinking  at  all,  not  the  "  empirical  "  fact 
thought.  Thus  I  have  already  said  that  perception  and  conperception 
gave  only  the  general  and  undefined  fact  of  a  cause  or  ground  and 
apperception  that  of  similarity  without  regard  to  the  question  whether 
it  is  essential  or  accidental,  and  so  do  not  specify  the  kind  of  cause  or 
the  necessary  relation  of  the  things  apperceived.  But  after  "  experi- 
ence "  has  taught  us  to  group  phenomena  together  in  a  definite  sub- 
ject or  facts  in  a  class  we  may  consciously  use  this  subject  or  type  for 
rendering  new  "  knowledge  "  intelligible.  The  functional  activity  of 
the  mind  is  the  same  in  cognition  and  explanation,  but  the  content  of 
the  two  may  be  different,  the  one  being  more  simple  and  the  other 
more  complex.  Take  an  example.  Cognition  may  give  the  convic- 
tion that  "  rain  "  has  a  cause  or  ground  for  its  existence  or  occurrence, 
but  it  may  not  know  what  particular  thing  or  fact  is  that  cause. 
Hence  the  judgment,  "  It  rains,"  which  is  the  simplest  form  of  an 
intensive  judgment  of  cognition.  But  when  we  know  more  about 
the  phenomenon  and  its  connections,  all  of  which  are  acquired  by  some 
process  of  apprehension,  cognition,  association  and  consociation,  we 
may  be  able  to  assign  the  effect  to  the  influence  of  temperature  on 
atmospheric  vapors.  We  may  see  a  color,  say  red,  and  cognition  will 
tell  us  nothing  more  than  it  belongs  to  a  ground  or  cause,  but  expla- 
nation of  a  definite  kind  will  say  whether  it  belong  to  an  apple  or  ball. 

Explanation,  therefore,  while  it  applies  the  categories,  has  a  refer- 
ence to  phenomenal  relations,  the  coexistence  and  sequence  of  phe- 
nomena, which  the  primary  mental  processes  do  not,  even  though  the 
latter  may  imply  them.  It  is  simply  a  more  advanced  and  complex 
stage  of  mental  action,  and  involves  the  use  of  phenomenal  facts  and 
groups  of  them  as  representatives  of  the  causes  and  grounds  by  which 
the  mind  makes  facts  intelligible.  It  is  governed  by  two  principles  or 
categories,  the  ratio  essendi  and  the  ratio  jiendi.  The  former  repre- 
sents the  principles  of  identity  and  difference  and  the  latter  the  princi- 
ple of  causality.  The  application  of  the  ratio  essendi  or  principles 
of  similarity  and  diversity  determines  classification,  or  the  unification  of 
phenomena  in  kind,  and  the  application  of  the  ratio  Jiendi  determines 
causification,  as  I  shall  call  it,  in  contrast  to  mere  classification,  and 
means  the  assignment  of  causes. 

Now  explanation  may  be  known  or  conjectural.  Known  expla- 
nation will  also  take  two  forms,  cognition  and  generalization  on  the 
principle  of  identity,  that  is  a  priori  generalization.  I  have  already 
discussed  this  type  of  explanation.  Conjectural  explanation  is  induc- 
tive in  nature  and  represents  the  formation  of  hypotheses  and  "  empir- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  241 

ical "  generalizations.  Their  verification  is  the  last  step  in  the  deter- 
mination of  "  knowledge,"  previous  steps  being  hypothetical.  Now, 
as  hypothesis  is  the  most  important  characteristic  or  agency  in  what  is 
called  "  inductive  method,"  and  represents  the  step  by  which  a  given 
explanation  of  a  phenomenon  is  proposed  it  will  be  necessary  to  exam- 
ine it  somewhat  carefully. 

3.  Hypothesis .  —  An  hypothesis  is  a  supposition,  an  inference  of 
the  inductive  type,  and  consequently  represents  what  the  mind  thinks 
may  be  a  fact  or  cause  not  immediately  presented  in  "  experience"  at 
the  time  the  hypothesis  is  formed.  To  illustrate,  take  the  Copernican 
system  of  astronomy.  Copernicus  observed  certain  complex  relations 
involved  in  the  Ptolemaic  system  and  conjectured  that  a  simpler  theory 
for  the  explanation  of  the  apparent  motion  of  the  sun  around  the  earth 
was  the  motion  of  the  earth  around  the  sun.  This  inference  did  not 
guarantee  its  own  certitude,  but  had  to  be  consistent  with  other  facts 
beside  the  possibility  of  it  in  terms  of  the  mind's  conception  of  it.  I 
see  drops  of  water  on  the  grass  in  the  morning  and  infer  that  they  are 
due  to  the  influence  of  cold  air  on  the  vapors  suspended  in  the  air.  I 
hear  a  certain  kind  of  noise  and  infer  that  it  is  caused  by  the  approach 
of  a  street  car.  I  notice  the  fall  of  objects  when  unsupported  in  the 
air  and  suppose  that  the  gravitation  of  the  earth  extends  indefinitely  in 
space.  All  these  have  to  be  verified  in  some  way  before  they  become 
more  than  hypotheses. 

But  the  fundamental  quality  of  an  hypothesis  has  not  been  re- 
marked. I  have  only  said  that  it  is  an  inference  of  the  inductive  sort 
and  illustrated  the  application  of  the  term.  We  must  indicate  its 
essential  characteristic  in  order  to  define  it  accurately.  I  identify  it 
with  the  process  of  an  inductive  inference,  as  does  Whewell,  and  so 
must  define  it  as  the  superposition  of  an  idea  on  a  fact.  This  con- 
ception of  it  represents  it  as  similar  in  its  general  conception  as  the 
application  of  a  category  or  principle  of  judgment  to  an  apprehension 
or  phenomenon.  The  difference  between  them  is  the  fact  that  cogni- 
tion is  "  a  priori"  while  hypothesis  is  "  empirical."  The  principles 
of  cognition  represent  native  laws  of  thought ;  the  principles  of  hy- 
pothesis the  use  of  an  "idea"  of  the  "empirical"  sort  in  the  same 
manner  as  judgment  uses  a  category.  The  fact  in  the  application  of 
hypothesis  will  be  given  in  "experience"  or  observation,  and  the 
explanation  will  be  found  in  the  superposition  upon  it  of  an  "idea" 
or  conception  which  renders  the  fact  intelligible  or  indicates  its  cause. 
The  hypothesis  is  its  interpretation  or  the  assignment  of  its  meaning. 
It  represents  more  than  is  given  in  the  individual  "  experience"  to  be 
16 


242  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

interpreted  or  explained.  If  it  were  not  more  than  what  is  given,  an 
inductive  inference  would  not  be  required,  but  we  should  have  an 
apprehension  or  cognition  or  generalization  of  the  a  priori  type.  To 
illustrate  the  definition  of  it  as  the  superposition  of  an  u  idea"  on  a 
fact,  take  Kepler's  theory  of  planetary  motion.  This  theory  was  that 
the  planets  revolve  about  the  sun  in  elliptical  orbits.  All  that  the 
Copernican  theory  maintains  was  that  the  planets  moved  about  the  sun, 
but  it  did  not  definitely  determine  the  nature  of  this  motion.  Now, 
the  facts  in  Kepler's  observations  were  certain  determinate  positions  of 
the  planets  in  space  as  observed  at  different  times.  He  noticed  that 
these  positions  represented  or  coincided  with  points  in  an  ellipse.  He 
therefore  simply  inferred  that  an  ellipse  represented  the  whole  line  of 
the  orbit.  He  found  a  part  of  an  ellipse  in  his  observations  and  in- 
ferred the  rest.  That  is,  he  superposed  the  known  "idea"  of  an 
ellipse  upon  the  facts  which  represented  points  in  such  a  line.  This 
inference  was  verified  by  further  observations.  The  Newtonian  hy- 
pothesis of  gravitation  was  formed  in  a  similar  manner.  The  observed 
fact  was  falling  objects  and  the  doctrine  of  terrestrial  attraction  as 
determining  the  motion  of  these  objects.  The  hypothesis  was  the 
extension  of  this  attraction  to  other  and  celestial  bodies,  explaining 
their  elliptical  motion.  In  the  Keplerian  hypothesis  the  "  idea  "  super- 
posed was  that  of  an  ellipse  already  known  in  mathematics,  and  in  the 
Newtonian  hypothesis  the  "  idea  "  superposed  was  that  of  terrestrial 
attraction  and  the  balance  of  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces. 
Another  illustration  of  hypothesis  is  Franklin's  identification  of  elec- 
tricity and  lightning.  Certain  common  facts  in  the  phenomena  of  both 
were  observed  and  their  identity  in  other  respects  inferred  from  these. 
The  "  ideas  "  known  in  electrical  phenomena  were  simply  superposed 
on  the  fact  of  lightning.  That  is,  lightning  was  interpreted  or  ex- 
plained as  a  form  of  electricity.  The  volcanic  theory  of  the  earth's 
center  is  another  instance.  The  hypothesis  of  evolution  was  the  appli- 
cation of  the  "  ideas  "  of  continuity  and  the  variation  of  domestic  spe- 
cies under  cultivation  to  the  origin  of  species  in  general.  The  same 
principle  will  be  found  in  all  legitimate  hypotheses. 

The  resemblance  of  this  procedure  to  the  use  of  the  Categories  in 
judgment,  as  Kant  treated  it,  is  quite  apparent.  Kant's  categories 
were  "a  priori"  while  the  "ideas"  which  are  superposed  in  the 
inductive  process  are  "empirical,"  though  I  should  not  object  to  the 
use  of  "  a  priori"  in  these  cases.  What  I  am  maintaining  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  genesis  of  the  concept  applied  or  superposed.  I  call 
attention  to  the  relation  of  the  process  to  Kant's  doctrine  to  show  that 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  243 

the  inductive  activity  of  the  mind  is  fundamentally  like  the  deductive, 
and  differs  only  in  the  modality  or  certitude  of  the  result.  In  "  a  pri- 
ori" judgments  the  modality  is  certitude  or  necessity  ;  in  "  empirical  " 
or  inductive  judgments  it  is  possibility  and  probability. 

There  are,  however,  certain  conditions  of  legitimate  hypothesis. 
Suppositions  cannot  be  made  ad  libitum  and  without  reference  to 
relevancy.  They  are  subject  to  certain  limitations  in  their  application. 
Two  rules  probably  suffice  to  regulate  their  legitimacy. 

(a)  An  hypothesis  should  not  be  inconsistent  with  known  facts 
and  causes,  but  in  the  attempt  to  explain  new  phenomena  should  be 
shown  to  conform  to  the  known  in  essential  characteristics.  That  is, 
the  new  hypothesis  must  have  some  continuity  with  past  u  knowledge." 

To  illustrate  :  Newton's  hypothesis  of  universal  gravitation  appealed 
to  the  admitted  attraction  of  the  earth  for  falling  bodies  and  only 
extended  its  operation  indefinitely  in  space.  He  said  of  his  doctrine, 
M  hypotheses  non  Jingo"  Kepler  appealed  to  existing  ideas  of 
ellipses,  Copernicus  to  our  conceptions  of  motion  and  its  cause  to 
remove  the  perplexities  of  the  Ptolemaic  system.  Darwin  appealed 
to  the  struggle  for  existence,  domestic  variation,  and  the  continuity  of 
different  species  to  justify  the  theory  of  evolution.  The  theory  of  dew 
could  depend  on  the  law  of  aqueous  distillation.  As  examples  of 
illegitimate  hypotheses  take  the  cases  of  "  materia  pinguis,"  fatty 
matter,  and  "  lapidifying  juice"  to  account  for  the  traces  of  fossils  in 
the  rocks,  instead  of  using  what  we  know  of  deposits  on  the  shores  of 
rivers  and  bays.  Also  the  arbitrary  assumption  of  the  Italian  philos- 
opher who  sought  to  reconcile  the  Aristotelian  and  Platonic  theory  of 
the  rotundity  of  heavenly  bodies  with  the  supposition  of  Galileo, 
proved  by  observations  with  the  telescope,  that  the  moon  had  a  rough 
surface,  by  imagining  that  the  hollow  parts  were  filled  with  transpar- 
ent crystal  which  would  permit  the  same  appearances  of  light  and 
shadow  as  those  which  we  observe.  This  was  an  unnecessary  sup- 
position made  merely  to  remain  consistent  in  some  absolute  sense  with 
the  a  priori  assumption  that  the  heavenly  bodies  were  perfectly  round 
because  nature  tended  to  perfection. 

(6)  An  hypothesis  should  permit  the  application  of  deductive 
reasoning,  or  of  inferences  to  consequences  which  are  capable  of 
comparison  with  the  results  of  observation  or  verification  thereby. 

As  an  illustration  of  hypotheses  which  do  not  conform  to  this  rule 
we  have  the  old  theory  of  phlogiston  as  an  assumed  explanation  of  the 
phenomena  of  heat.  It  was  only  another  term  for  the  facts  themselves. 
Every  legitimate  hypothesis  must  represent  some  other  fact  than  those 


244  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

needing  explanation  and  hence  a  fact  from  which  can  be  deduced  the 
probability  or  certainty  that  consequences  not  yet  observed  will  follow. 
Thus  if  I  suppose  that  the  attraction  of  the  moon  causes  the  tides,  I 
can  infer  that  there  will  be  a  certain  mathematical  relation  between  the 
moon's  mass  and  the  height  of  the  tides.  Observation  verifies  this. 
Again  if  we  suppose  that  gravity  acts  on  matter  in  direct  proportion 
to  its  mass  we  may  infer  that  its  velocity  in  falling  will  be  equal  in  all 
cases  under  the  same  conditions.  If  the  Newtonian  hypothesis  of 
gravitation  be  legitimate  we  can  deduce  from  it  the  fact  that  there  will 
be  a  certain  law  of  planetary  motion,  and  if  this  law  is  not  found  to  be 
true  there  will  be  some  difficulty  in  admitting  the  Newtonian  theorem, 
unless  the  anomalous  discrepancies  can  be  explained  consistently  with 
the  main  hypothesis.  If  iridescence  be  due  to  the  form  of  the  matter 
in  connection  with  which  it  occurs  and  not  with  the  nature  of  it,  then 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  infer  that  the  phenomenon  will  be  producible 
by  the  artificial  creation  of  this  condition  as  found  in  the  mother  of 
pearl.  Experiment  shows  that  this  is  a  fact.  If  the  undulatory  theory 
of  light  be  legitimate  we  should  expect  to  find  areas  of  darkness  at  the 
point  of  the  intersection  of  the  rays  of  light,  as  silence  is  found  at  the 
intersection  of  sound  waves.  In  all  such  cases  the  fact  or  cause  which 
serves  as  the  starting  point  of  the  hypothesis  does  more  than  name  the 
fact  to  be  explained.  It  names  other  facts  with  certain  known  impli- 
cations, so  that  when  we  apply  the  hypothesis  to  the  new  phenomena 
we  should  be  able  to  test  the  meaning  of  our  application  by  inferring 
that  the  theory  is  more  than  the  new  facts  and  involved  consequences 
possibly  not  observed  at  the  discovery  of  the  new  phenomena. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  this  conformity  of  hypoth- 
eses to  known  facts  and  to  the  requirement  of  deductive  reasoning 
may  not  prove  the  hypothesis  to  be  true.  It  only  establishes  its  right 
to  recognition,  and  verification  may  have  to  come  in  to  complete  its 
validity. 

4.  Verification.  —  The  verification  of  hypotheses  is  their  "  proof," 
or  is  the  process  of  testing  their  validity.  When  they  are  first  made, 
unless  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  proposed  at  the  same  time 
satisfy  the  demands  of  assured  truth,  they  are  held  more  or  less  in 
abeyance  and  suspense  of  judgment.  They  are  simply  probable  or 
legitimately  possible  to  the  extent  of  being  tolerable.  The  desire  of 
the  mind  is  to  see  them  "  proved."  Consequently  in  various  ways  we 
seek  the  evidence  of  their  validity  in  facts  that  increase  the  tenacity  of 
conviction.  The  facts  which  verify  an  hypothesis  may  be  of  the  same 
general  kind  as  those  which  suggest  it,  and  only  serve  to  indicate  that 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  245 

uniformity  of  nature  which  helps  to  sustain  belief  in  the  processes 
which  explain  the  phenomena  suggesting  a  theory.  It  should  be 
noticed,  however,  that  verification  does  not  add,  or  does  not  require  to 
add,  to  the  material  content  of  "  knowledge"  in  the  process  of  proving 
hypotheses.  Its  chief  function  is  to  affect  the  modality  of  judg- 
ments already  formed  and  not  to  suggest  them.  It  is  a  process  for 
increasing  conviction,  not  for  producing  new  matter  of  truth.  Hence 
it  is  an  evidential,  not  an  explanatory  function  of  belief.  It  seeks  to 
establish  conviction,  not  matter  of  consciousness.  We  found  that 
explanation  involved  the  ratio  essendi  and  the  ratio  Jiendi  of  phenom- 
ena and  things,  that  is,  content  of  belief  and  "knowledge."  Now 
verification  is  based  upon  the  ratio  cognoscendi,  of  "  knowledge"  and 
belief.  It  represents  the  evidential  criteria  which  increase  conviction 
in  cases  where  it  is  but  provisional  to  start  with.  The  facts  and  con- 
ditions may  be  capable  of  suggesting  either  the  hypotheses  confirmed 
or  new  ones  to  be  further  tested,  but  used  for  verification  they  only 
increase  the  tenacity  and  cohesiveness  of  belief  in  the  suppositions 
otherwise  suggested.  Consequently  in  thus  attesting  hypotheses  or 
supplying  them  with  the  ratio  cognoscendi,  verification  simply  acts 
as  a  criterion  of  truth,  and  may  reach  all  the  way  to  "proof,"  though 
its  purpose  is  satisfied  if  it  simply  increases  the  probability  of  the 
supposition  with  which  it  starts. 

The  various  processes  of  verification  are  Observation,  Experiment, 
Deduction,  and  Induction.  These,  of  course,  are  only  the  continuation 
of  the  processes  which  may  give  rise  to  hypothesis,  except  that  they 
iire  expected  to  supply  additional  facts  in  support  of  the  inference  first 
suggested.  They  are  all  based  upon  the  Principles  of  Scientific 
Method  still  to  be  considered,  and  may  be  illustrated  briefly  in  the 
following  manner. 

When  Newton  first  thought  of  the  law  of  universal  gravitation,  he 
was  not  content  with  its  power  to  explain  the  single  phenomenon 
which  suggested  it,  but  he  saw  that  certain  other  facts  must  follow 
from  it  or  be  associated  with  it.  He  therefore  set  about  a  mathema- 
tical calculation  to  see  if  the  result  coincided  with  what  ought  to  occur 
in  the  case  and  seeing  that  it  did  not,  he  gave  up  his  theory  until  new 
data,  some  ten  years  latter,  were  discovered  regarding  the  true  distance 
of  the  moon  from  the  earth.  He  then  resumed  his  calculations  and 
found  that  the  result  coincided  with  his  hypothesis.  He  regarded  this 
as  a  verification  of  it.  When  the  hypothesis  that  all  gases  are  com- 
pressible into  liquids  or  solids  was  advanced,  it  was  at  least  a  partial 
verification  of  it  to  have  succeeded  in  compressing  hydrogen  into  a 


246  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

a  liquid  under  a  low  temperature  and  high  pressure.  When  the  Coper- 
nican  theory  of  planetary  motion  around  the  sun  was  proposed  and  the 
explanation  of  the  phases  of  the  moon  was  accepted,  it  was  argued 
that  Mercury  and  Venus  ought  to  exhibit  similar  phases.  This  was 
admitted  by  the  advocates  of  the  Ptolemaic  theory  even  and  stated 
as  contrary  to  actual  observation.  But  when  Galileo  turned  his  tele- 
scope upon  them  the  inference  was  verified  by  the  discovery  of  these 
phases.  An  experiment  of  Sir  David  Brewster's  showed  that  irides- 
cence was  due  to  the  form  and  not  to  the  nature  of  the  substance  of 
mother  of  pearl.  He  took  a  wax  impression  of  mother  of  pearl  and 
produced  the  same  effect  as  in  the  substance  of  pearl. 

These  illustrations  suffice  to  show  what  the  function  of  verification 
is  in  the  determination  of  conviction  in  connection  with  hypotheses. 
Before  further  discussion  of  the  question  it  remains  to  consider  the 
principles  of  scientific  method  which  are  operative  throughout  the 
whole  process  of  acquisition  and  verification.  When  these  have  been 
considered  we  may  ascertain  the  nature  of  inductive  generalizations 
and  their  relation  to  those  which  seem  to  have  a  modality  much  more 
certain  than  the  "empirical"  truths  of  induction,  though  scientific 
method  may  include  the  means  of  determining  certitude  and  necessity. 

II.  Principles  of  Scientific  Method. 
I  have  discussed  the  various  processes  by  which  "  knowledge  "  and 
belief  are  formed  in  the  application  of  scientific  method  and  it  now  re- 
mains to  examine  the  principles  upon  which  it  proceeds.  These  prin- 
ciples I  shall  treat  as  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  scientific  "  knowledge  " 
and  more  particularly  manifest  in  the  process  of  verification,  though 
they  also  condition  the  legitimacy  of  hypothesis  as  well.  They  are  not 
constitutive  of  the  nature  of  judgments  as  they  are  to  be  employed,  but 
criterial  of  their  legitimacy.  They  represent  rules  to  which  scientific 
investigation  of  all  kinds  must  conform,  and  by  "  scientific"  I  mean 
every  investigation  into  the  truth  of  affirmations  and  negations  whether 
in  the  field  of  philosophy  or  the  so-called  "  empirical  "  sciences.  Mill 
describes  them  as  the  "  Method  of  Agreement,"  the  "  Method  of  Dif- 
ference," the  "  Method  of  Concomitant  Variations,"  the  "  Method  of 
Joint  Agreement  and  Difference,"  and  the  "  Method  of  Residues." 
I  shall  reduce  these  five  methods  to  two  as  serving  our  general  purpose. 
Thus  the  "  Method  of  Concomitant  Variations  "  is  only  a  form  of  the 
"  Method  of  Agreement "  in  that  two  different  phenomena  are  simply 
described  as  agreeing  in  their  variations,  and  the  "  Method  of  Joint 
Agreement  and  Difference  "  is  only  a  combination  of  both  of  the  funda- 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  247 

mental  principles  while  that  of  "  Residues"  is  one  of  "  Difference" 
pure  and  simple,  so  named  only  because  of  its  special  application  to 
residual  phenomena.  But  in  reducing  them  to  two  types  of  principles 
I  shall  slightly  alter  the  phraseology.  I  shall  call  them  the  "  Principle 
of  Coincidence  "  and  the  '*  Principle  of  Isolation."  The  former  is  the 
same  as  that  of  "  Agreement"  and  the  latter  the  same  as  that  of  "Dif- 
ference." The  slight  change  of  phraseology  is  designed  to  avoid  all 
implications  of  the  categories  of  Identity  and  Difference,  as  explained 
in  earlier  discussions.  There  is  undoubtedly  a  close  relation  between 
them  and  I  should  be  quite  willing  to  assume  and  admit  that  the  prin- 
ciples are  the  same  as  in  the  exercises  of  judgment,  but  I  wish  to  use 
them  here  as  ratio  cognoscendi,  as  evidential  criteria,  and  not  as  ratio 
essendi  and  ratio  Jiendi  or  as  constitutive  elements  of  the  meaning  of 
judgment.  The  principles  of  coincidence  and  isolation  represent  the 
conditions  on  which  the  formation  and  verification  of  hypotheses  can 
take  place  and  so  represent  criteria  of  legitimacy,  not  the  nature  of  the 
subject  matter  of  "  knowledge  "  and  belief.  With  this  explanation  of 
the  meaning  of  the  changed  phraseology  I  may  leave  the  conception  of 
the  facts  and  the  nature  of  the  "  Methods  "  to  the  reader  to  actually 
be  identified  with  the  principles  of  Mill  and  other  writers. 

1 .  Principle  of  Coincidence  or  Agreement.  —  The  Canon  of  Co- 
incidence or  Agreement  may  be  defined  as  the  principle  which  deter- 
mines the  probability  of  a  given  identity  or  connection  on  the  ground 
of  the  actual  frequency  of  certain  resemblances  or  coincidences  under 
varying  conditions.  Or  more  simply  still,  the  coincidence  or  agreement 
of  two  phenomena  in  respect  of  the  qualities  producing  them  or  in  re- 
spect of  the  connection  in  which  they  occur,  is  a  criterion  of  their  cause, 
whether  material  or  efficient. 

To  illustrate  :  If  I  discover  that  rainfall  is  frequently  consociated 
with  a  certain  type  of  cloud,  I  may  infer  that  this  type  of  cloud  is  its 
cause  or  an  index  of  what  the  conditions  are  that  cause  the  rainfall. 
The  more  frequently  that  this  coincidence  occurs  the  more  general  will 
be  the  judgment  so  passed.  If  I  find  that  certain  flowers  turn  in  the 
dark  toward  the  light,  I  may  infer  that  the  light  is  the  cause.  If  I  find 
that  the  roots  of  trees  grow  in  greater  quantities  and  at  greater  length 
toward  water  courses,  I  may  infer  that  the  water  course  is  the  cause  of 
the  phenomenon.  If  I  discover  certain  organic  resemblances  between 
species,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  individuals,  I  may  infer  that  they 
belong  to  the  same  genus.  If  two  elements  agree  in  a  quality  that  puts 
them  in  a  given  class,  we  may  infer  that  other  qualities  of  that  class  will 
be  found,  if  these  other  qualities  are  regarded  as  necessary  to  the  type. 


248  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

If  I  find  consciousness  always  associated  with  an  organism  and  do  not 
find  it  apart  from  such,  I  must  infer  that  it  is  a  function  of  this  organism. 
I  must  interpret  it  as  I  do  other  functions  or  properties  so  found.  If  I 
frequently  find  "  hard  times'"  associated  with  failure  of  crops,  I  may 
infer  that  there  is  a  causal  connection  between  the  two  and  expect  the 
fact  always  to  occur. 

The  cogency  of  the  inference  is  greatly  strengthened  if  the  coinci- 
dence is  connected  with  other  facts  which  we  would  naturally  expect 
to  be  related  to  the  phenomena  observed.  Thus  if  we  know  that  trees 
use  moisture  in  the  process  of  growth,  it  renders  all  the  more  probable 
the  supposition  that  the  water  courses  affect  the  growth  of  their  roots 
toward  them.  We  thus  find  that  the  probability  or  certainty  of  our 
inference  and  generalization  will  increase  in  proportion  to  the  coinci- 
dences involved  in  the  phenomena  associated  and  consociated. 

2.  Principle  of  Isolatio7t,  or  Difference.  — The  Canon  of  Isola- 
tion may  be  defined  as  the  principle  which  determines  the  probability 
or  certainty  of  an  inference  or  generalization  by  the  extent  to  which 
phenomena  and  their  causes  are  separated  from  the  connections  which 
would  make  any  other  cause  possible  in  the  case.  If  two  phenomena 
are  constantly  isolated  together  from  other  groups  which  remain  inva- 
riable without  the  accompaniment  of  the  two  under  consideration,  the 
separated  phenomena  may  be  taken  as  necessarily  connected  in  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  the  antecedent  being  the  cause  and  the 
consequent  being  the  effect. 

To  illustrate  :  It  was  inferred  from  the  nature  of  gravity  that  it 
acted  equally  on  all  bodies  and  that  weight  had  no  influence  to  modify 
the  motion  of  falling  bodies.  This  supposition  seemed  to  be  contra- 
dicted by  the  fact  that  bodies  like  lead  and  feathers  did  not  fall  with 
the  same  velocities.  But  when  the  lead  and  feathers  are  put  in  a  re- 
ceiver and  the  air  exhausted  from  it  they  are  found  to  fall  with  equal 
velocity  through  equal  spaces  in  equal  times.  The  isolation  of  the 
bodies  from  the  retarding  influence  of  the  air,  which  can  act  with  more 
force  on  the  feathers  than  the  lead  because  of  the  greater  surface  exposed 
in  proportion  to  specific  gravity,  went  to  show  that  there  can  be  but 
one  cause  of  the  effect.  The  inference  is  conclusive  in  proportion  to 
the  certitude  that  the  conditions  represent  this  isolation  of  phenomenon 
and  cause.  Again,  if  I  actually  isolate  a  substance  from  its  association 
with  another  element  which  has  prevented  my  discovery  of  it,  I  have 
the  right  to  assert  the  existence  of  a  new  element.  Otherwise  it 
might  be  an  instance  of  allotropism  or  isomerism.  If  we  isolate  an 
individual  consciousness  from  the  organism  with  which  it  has  been 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  249 

naturally  associated,  we  prove  its  independent  existence ;  that  is,  we 
prove  that  it  is  not  a  function  solely  of  the  organism,  but  is  the  func- 
tion of  some  other  subject.  The  method  of  coincidence  favors  the 
supposition  that  consciousness  is  a  function  of  the  organism,  but  the 
method  of  isolation  would  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  it  was  not  so. 
To  quote  Jevons  :  "Thus  we  can  clearly  prove  that  friction  is  one 
cause  of  heat,  because  when  two  sticks  are  rubbed  together  they  become 
heated ;  when  not  rubbed  together  they  do  not  become  heated.  Sir 
Humphrey  Davy  showed  that  even  two  pieces  of  ice  when  rubbed 
together  in  a  vacuum  produce  heat,  as  shown  by  their  melting,  and 
thus  completely  demonstrate  that  the  friction  is  the  source  and  cause 
of  the  heat.  We  prove  that  air  is  the  cause  of  sound  being  communi- 
cated to  our  ears  by  striking  a  bell  in  the  receiver  of  an  air  pump,  as 
Hawksbee  first  did  in  17 15,  and  then  observing  when  the  receiver  is 
full  of  air  we  hear  the  bell ;  when  it  contains  little  or  no  air  we  do  not 
hear  the  bell.  We  learn  that  sodium,  or  any  of  its  compounds,  pro- 
duces a  spectrum  having  a  bright  yellow  double  line,  by  noticing  that 
there  is  no  such  line  in  the  spectrum  of  light  when  sodium  is  not 
present,  but  that  if  the  smallest  quantity  of  sodium  be  thrown  into  the 
flame  or  other  source  of  light,  the  bright  yellow  line  instantly  appears." 
All  these  cases  are  instances  of  the  principle  of  isolation. 

It  is  possible  to  maintain  that  the  principles  of  coincidence  and 
isolation  may  be  cooperative  in  many  instances  in  which  our  convic- 
tions are  formed  and  verified.  These  instances  would  be  such  as  those 
in  which  coincidence  suggests  what  isolation  proves.  But  it  will  not 
be  necessary  to  more  than  admit  this  fact  as  a  possible  one,  as  I  am 
not  here  developing  a  guide  for  the  practical  investigator  in  all  fields 
of  investigation,  but  only  indicating  the  general  principles  which  reg- 
ulate convictions  in  any  case  and  so  suggest  the  primary  canons  of 
epistemology,  when  it  comes  to  legitimizing  and  verifying  the  judg- 
ments and  generalizations  which  define  belief  and  "knowledge." 
Some  judgments  have  so  little  probability  when  first  suggested  that 
the  mind  seeks  some  way  to  decide  which  side  of  the  issue  its  allegi- 
ance may  support.  In  mathematics  there  is  no  difficulty  in  deter- 
mining what  is  true  and  what  is  false.  But  in  the  inductive  sciences 
and  in  all  those  generalizations  which  represent  various  degrees  of 
probability,  it  is  sought  to  investigate  the  integrity  of  statements  and 
to  confirm  them  in  the  various  ways  intimated.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  probability  has  degrees  ;  certitude  and  necessity  have  not.  Prob- 
ability denotes  a  modality  extending  from  an  incipient  belief  of  the 
merely  possible  sort  to  convictions  which  are  so  tenacious  that  doubt  of 


250  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY, 

them  seems  difficult.  Within  this  range  of  probabilities  there  is  a 
great  need  of  such  criteria  as  I  have  defined  and  illustrated  in  the 
principles  of  coincidence  and  isolation.  They  are  applied  to  test  the 
validity  of  a  judgment  and  its  extent,  and  it  will  be  acceptable  in  pro- 
portion to  the  constancy  with  which  the  phenomena  to  be  explained 
occur  in  the  same  or  different  connections.  The  conviction  may 
have  but  a  slight  probability  in  its  initial  stage  and  then  reach  proof  in 
its  final  stage,  which  will  occur  in  the  application  of  the  principle  of 
isolation.  The  whole  process  will  indicate  the  extent  to  which  asser- 
tions can  be  made  universal  or  necessary,  or  not.  In  all  stages  inter- 
mediate between  the  primary  acts  of  the  mind  and  the  application  of 
the  principle  of  isolation,  which  is  practically  the  realization  of  the 
conditions  defining  the  primary,  the  generalizations  will  be  more  or 
less  contingent  and  "  empirical."  It  is  the  business  of  investigation, 
analysis,  and  the  application  of  scientific  method  to  determine  the 
measure  of  certitude  and  probability  accruing  to  judgments  thus  re- 
lated, and  it  succeeds  in  proportion  to  our  ability  to  use  the  principles 
which  I  have  defined  and  illustrated. 

The  analysis  of  scientific  method  was  undertaken  in  order  to  deter- 
mine the  character  of  certain  forms  of  judgment  which  were  not  self- 
evident  and  whose  universality  and  necessity  were  subject  to  doubt. 
Thus  we  found  in  such  propositions  as  2  -f  2  are  4  statements  that 
were  accepted  as  certain  and  necessarily  true,  but  in  such  statements 
as  "All  oranges  are  yellow,"  we  had  judgments  which  might  not 
seem  to  be  necessarily  true.  We  could  easily  conceive  that  "  oranges  " 
might  be  white  or  red.  Hence  it  would  appear  that  the  only  truth 
assignable  to  such  propositions  would  be  "  empirical,"  that  is,  mne- 
monically  true,  "universal"  within  the  limits  of  "experience"  and 
not  necessarily  so  for  future  "  experience."  Hence  it  became  neces- 
sary to  examine  the  processes  and  principles  which  determine  such 
propositions  as  distinct  from  those  of  mathematics.  They  were  found 
to  be  more  or  less  contingent  and  the  question  arises  why  they  are  so. 
The  general  answer  was,  of  course,  that  in  mathematics  we  were  deal- 
ing with  a  static  world,  and  in  physics  with  a  dynamic  world,  a 
system  of  phenomenal  changes.  The  contingency  of  judgment  in  the 
latter  world  is  just  as  certain  as  its  necessity  in  the  former,  and  yet 
there  were  found  a  system  of  judgments  in  the  physical  or  substantive 
world  with  quite  as  cohesive  a  character  in  the  relation  between  sub- 
ject and  predicate  apparently  is  in  the  static  world.  The  question 
was  to  determine  why  this  is  the  case.  The  answer  is  that  scientific 
method  shows  a  measure  of  constancy  even  in  the  world  of  change 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  251 

and  in  that  proportion  we  can  affix  cohesiveness  to  judgments  repre- 
senting the  relations  of  phenomena. 

In  order  to  understand  the  use  of  the  principles  of  scientific  method 
in  the  study  of  judgments  it  may  be  well  to  review  their  nature  and 
types  somewhat  briefly.  We  had  originally  two  kinds  of  judgment, 
intensive  and  extensive.  The  former  are  always  substantive  and  the 
latter  may  be  either  substantive  or  mathematical.  Universality  and 
necessity  could  be  predicated  of  mathematical  propositions,  owing  to 
the  quantitative  and  qualitative  identity  of  subject  and  predicate. 
Their  validity  is  never  in  question.  But  we  found  some  confusion  in 
the  problem  as  affected  by  intensive  judgments.  In  their  pure  form 
as  defined,  their  universality  is  not  a  priori.  That  is  we  cannot  say, 
except  hypothetically,  assuming  that  conditions  remain  the  same, 
that  the  union  of  subject  and  predicate  holds  good  for  all  time  and 
space,  which  is  what  an  a  priori  and  necessary  judgment  must  do. 
We  found  it  necessary,  therefore,  to  distinguish  between  the  formal 
and  the  real  intensive  judgment.  The  formal  intensive  judgment 
exhibits  the  same  form  of  expression  as  the  real,  but  the  mind  may 
substitute  the  idea  of  an  attribute  for  that  of  substance  in  thinking  of 
the  subject,  so  that  we  have  an  association  of  two  attributes  or 
phenomena  in  the  proposition  instead  of  an  association  of  a  substance 
and  attribute.  This  tendency  gives  rise  to  the  opportunity  for  intro- 
ducing the  principle  of  identity  into  the  real  meaning  of  propositions 
that  are  apparently  regulated  by  the  principle  of  causality.  The  intro- 
duction of  identity  into  them  may  affect  the  generalization  to  an  extent 
that  renders  some  sort  of  forecasting  of  the  future  possible.  In  what 
sense  this  is  possible  I  shall  examine  in  a  moment.  I  shall  first  repeat 
the  considerations  which  prevent  the  application  of  a  priori  univer- 
sality and  necessity  to  pure  intensive  judgments.  This  we  found  to 
be  the  noumenal  and  persistent  nature  of  the  subject  and  the  phenom- 
enal and  changeable  nature  of  the  predicate.  We  found  that  in  the 
substantive  world  we  are  dealing  with  a  system  of  change,  except  that 
substance  itself  is  supposed  to  be  permanent  and  constant.  Its  attri- 
butes change.  This  fact  prevents  us  from  asserting  the  necessary  con- 
stancy of  any  attribute  in  space  and  time  though  the  substantive 
subject  be  the  same,  or  the  same  in  kind.  But  as  we  do  not  always 
think  of  the  substantive  import  of  our  subject  terms,  taking  instead  its 
attributive  or  phenomenal  implication  as  its  equivalent,  we  find  that 
we  may  be  representing  a  relation  between  phenomena  not  noticeable 
in  the  merely  formal  character  of  the  intensive  judgment,  and  this 
relation   will   be   one  of  identity  or  difference  according  to  circum- 


252  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

stances.  Consequently  no  a  priori  generalization  regarding  the  class 
can  be  made  until  we  determine  when  the  relation  is  one  of  identity 
and  when  it  is  one  of  difference.  The  process  by  which  this  is  done 
is  not  easily  defined.  But  it  brings  out  some  fundamental  considera- 
tions in  what  passes  for  the  problem  of  "  knowledge."  I  must 
examine  these  with  the  qualifications  which  they  apply  to  the  question 
under  review. 

The  first  thing  to  observe  is  that  definitions  are  not  existential  judg- 
ments, but  only  an  explication  of  the  meaning  of  terms.  Whatever 
a  priori  universality  they  obtain  is  due  to  the  identity  of  subject  and 
predicate  and  the  necessity  that  the  meaning  of  language  shall  be  uni- 
form whether  nature  is  so  or  not.  The  definition  does  not  imply  either 
that  the  thing  defined  exists  or  that,  if  it  exists,  it  shall  continue,  but 
only  that  when  it  exists  the  term  can  apply  to  it.  Now  this  necessity 
of  the  fixity  of  meaning  for  terms  is  important  for  all  communication 
of  ' '  knowledge  "  or  ideas ,  Unless  a  term  shall  have  a  constant  mean- 
ing it  is  useless  to  indicate  what  are  the  objects  of  thought  and  discus- 
sion. Consequently  our  concepts  must  have  stability  of  meaning  in 
terms  of  the  language  which  denominates  them,  whether  nature  has 
that  stability  or  not.  Nature  repeats  herself  enough  for  us  to  insist 
upon  the  constancy  of  our  conceptions  amid  the  changes  of  facts  and 
so  propositions  embodying  definitions  may  be  a  priori  and  necessary 
without  implying  any  existential  facts  corresponding  to  them  at  all 
times  and  places.  A  somewhat  similar  status  obtains  for  certain  other 
propositions. 

Now  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  a  subject  in  an  apparently  intensive 
judgment  may  have  a  substantive  import,  in  common  parlance  and 
discussion  it  does  not  seem  to  have  this  exclusive  meaning.  We 
noted  that  in  intensive  judgments  of  the  pure  and  real  form  the  predi- 
cate, as  a  phenomenal  fact  of  "  experience,"  is  the  ratio  cognoscendi 
of  the  subject  not  its  ratio  essendi  (ontological,  material  cause,  iden- 
tity) ,  while  the  subject  may  be  viewed  as  the  ratio  Jiendi  of  the  pred- 
icate, the  ordo  cognitionis  being  the  reverse  of  ordo  naturce.  But  the 
very  nature  of  this  relation  between  the  phenomenal  predicate  and  its 
subject  (numerical  identity,  numero  eadern)  makes  the  abstract  subject 
of  cognition  convertible  with  the  predicate  in  so  far  as  conception  or 
representation  is  concerned,  and  when  this  is  once  done  the  word 
which  names  the  subject  is  conceived  more  or  less  in  terms  of  the  pred- 
icate. This  is  to  say,  that  the  predicate  is  taken  to  be  its  essential 
quality  which  shall  always  be  our  criterion  of  the  presence  of  the  sub- 
ject in  experience.     Whatever  substantive  meaning  the  term  may  have 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  253 

to  give  the  proposition  a  really  or  apparently  synthetic  character  the 
subject  may  denote  the  predicate  by  implication  and  be  conceived  in 
its  terms.  We  get  such  judgments  as  "  snow  is  white  "  from  this  proc- 
ess, and  when  we  thus  decide  to  take  a  certain  quality  of  whiteness  as 
the  evidence  of  the  presence  of  the  subject,  and  as  the  attribute  which 
we  treat  as  essential  to  it,  we  get  a  proposition  which  is  like  a  defini- 
tion in  respect  to  its  universality  and  necessity,  but  differs  from  a 
definition  only  in  the  non-distribution  of  the  predicate.  But  when  a 
term  has  once  come  to  be  convertible  in  conception  with  the  phenom- 
enon which  is  the  function  or  quality  of  the  subject  or  substance  also 
named  by  the  term  the  real  character  of  an  intensive  judgment  may  be 
lost  and  the  synthesis  may  represent  the  connection  between  two  phe- 
nomena or  attributes.  Thus  if  taste  represent  the  essential  quality 
of  oranges  a  yellow  color  may  not  be  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
presence  of  this  particular  taste.  It  may  be  a  fact  that  "  all  oranges 
are  yellow,"  but  it  may  not  be  a  necessary  fact  that  this  synthesis 
should  exist.  Before  we  should  be  entitled  to  assert  that  the  yellow 
color  was  a  necessary  attribute  of  oranges  we  should  have  to  decide 
that  we  should  not  use  the  term  "  orange"  unless  both  attributes  were 
simultaneously  present.  This  is  simply  fixing  on  the  conditions  under 
which  the  term  shall  be  used  and  would  make  it  necessary  to  employ 
some  other  term  for  objects  in  which  the  taste  was  the  same  as  that  of 
"  oranges"  while  the  color  was  different.  There  is  no  a  priori  rea- 
son for  the  synthesis  of  these  two  qualities.  It  is  "  empirical."  The 
convenience  of  practical  life  has  made  it  useful  to  treat  the  two  attri- 
butes together,  so  that  the  presence  of  a  certain  yellow  color  may  be  the 
basis  of  an  inference  to  a  certain  taste,  and  the  presence  of  a  certain 
taste  may  be  the  basis  for  an  inference  to  a  certain  color,  the  color 
being  the  equivalent  of  "  orange"  for  sight  and  its  sapidity  the  equiv- 
alent for  taste.  The  employment  of  both  qualities  for  determining  the 
meaning  of  the  term  only  indicates  the  desire  to  prevent  the  term  from 
becoming  equivocal  and  to  fix  its  import  so  that  whatever  universality 
it  may  have  this  characteristic  may  not  conflict  any  more  than  is  pos- 
sible with  actual  "  experience."  But  it  will  be  apparent  that  the 
whole  procedure  is  "  empirical."  The  whole  extent  of  the  generali- 
zation is  dependent  upon  the  amount  of  coincidence  in  "  experience" 
between  a  given  taste  and  a  given  color,  and  it  can  never  take  the  form 
of  necessity  as  an  existential  judgment,  unless  we  prove  that  the  cause 
of  the  color  is  the  same  as  that  for  the  taste  and  that  their  connection 
is  inevitable  from  the  chemical  combinations  required  to  produce  the 
orange .     It  is  possible  that  the  majority  of  our  apparently  intensive  judg- 


254  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ments  are  precisely  like  the  one  just  discussed.  Wherever  they  are  so, 
it  is  evident  that  the  measure  of  their  generality  and  of  the  cohesiveness 
of  the  relation  between  subject  and  predicate  is  solely  determinable  by 
"  experience  "  and  dependent  upon  the  principles  of  coincidence  and 
isolation  for  the  measure  of  certitude  which  the  synthesis  shall  possess. 
The  frequency  of  their  association  and  consociation  in  "  experience," 
other  things  varying,  creates  the  probability  of  their  relation  in  the 
future,  but  will  not  make  it  necessary  until  the  principle  of  isolation 
has  been  satisfied.  The  consequence  is  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
form  of  propositions  that  will  indicate  when  their  prediction  of  the 
future  is  certain,  except  in  mathematical  propositions  and  definitions, 
and  such  as  interpret  the  meaning  of  the  subject  by  the  conception  of 
the  predicate,  that  is,  are  analytical  in  Kant's  definition  of  them.  The 
modality  of  all  others  is  problematical. 

III.    Summary  of  Results. 

We  have  found  that  the  problem  of  "knowledge"  starts  with  a 
demand  for  certitude  and  necessity  in  at  least  some  of  our  judgments 
and  is  finally  forced  to  distinguish  between  what  is  probable  and  what 
is  necessary  as  a  condition  of  preserving  any  claims  at  all.  It  was  easy 
enough  to  show  that  there  were  some  things  of  which  we  are  certain, 
but  it  too  often  happens  that  the  things  of  which  we  are  certain  are 
not  the  things  for  which  certitude  is  sought,  and  hence  the  quest  for 
data  and  proof  of  beliefs  which  seem  too  important  to  remain  in  a 
merely  problematical  condition.  "  Knowledge  "  of  the  present  moment 
gave  no  difficulty.  All  are  and  were  agreed  upon  that.  It  is  "  knowl- 
edge "  of  the  future  that  represents  the  important  quest.  Universal 
and  necessary  truth  claims  to  determine  what  is  true  for  the  future  as 
well  as  the  past  and  present.  Apprehension  and  memory  decide  the 
past  and  present  and  the  question  is  whether  there  is  any  faculty  or 
condition  under  which  propositions  valid  for  the  future  can  be  asserted. 
The  exigencies  of  the  whole  question  require  us  to  distinguish  between 
the  communication  and  the  acquisition,  and  between  the  cognitive 
acquisition  and  the  generalization,  of  "  knowledge."  Now  we  found 
that  it  is  only  in  the  process  of  generalization  that  any  pretense  of  a 
"  knowledge  "  of  the  future  is  possible.  All  others  are  occupied  with 
present  facts.  Bvit  man  thinks  before  and  after.  His  practical  and 
ethical  interests  require  him  to  know  at  least  some  of  the  probabilities 
of  the  future  in  order  that  he  may  have  a  better  chance  to  survive  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  This  is  very  simply  illustrated  in  the  rela- 
tion between  the  senses  of  sight  and  touch.     Sight  is  an  anticipatory 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  255 

sense  and  touch  is  the  protective  sense.  What  we  see  enables  us  to 
anticipate  the  risks  and  dangers  of  certain  tactual  experiences  and  this 
anticipation  is  only  forecasting  a  future  sensation.  Man's  power  of 
survival  and  avoidance  of  danger,  his  power  of  self-preservation,  is 
largely  dependent  upon  this  anticipation  of  the  future.  Hence  his 
desire  to  "  know  "  it,  if  possible.  Only  when  he  gambles  or  patronizes 
the  lottery  does  he  satisfy  himself  with  mere  chance  in  his  conduct. 
In  more  serious  financial  business  and  in  his  rational  conduct  he  is  less 
content  with  risk.  He  demands  a  mortgage  or  other  security  for  his 
investment,  and  this  presupposes  some  stability  in  the  course  of  nature 
or  confidence  in  the  honesty,  which  is  only  another  name  for  the 
stability  of  character,  in  his  fellow  man.  In  his  religious  life  he  wants 
to  know  what  confidence  he  may  have  in  the  order  of  the  cosmos 
which  plants  in  him  ideals  demanding  an  extension  beyond  the  present 
order  of  things  for  their  realization.  In  all  his  affairs,  whether 
domestic  or  political,  economic  or  social,  moral  or  aesthetic,  material 
or  spiritual,  he  demands  some  way  of  counting  on  the  future  as  a  con- 
dition of  making  any  rational  plans  or  ideals  practical  or  obligatory. 
If  the  seasons  are  irregular  and  their  return  cannot  be  relied  upon  I 
refuse  to  plant  my  crops.  We  want  some  reasonable  hope  and 
expectation  of  realizing  our  ideals  if  they  are  to  have  any  validity  or 
imperativeness  at  all.  This  hope  must  assume  some  probability  or 
certainty  about  the  course  of  nature  in  some  respects  at  least.  To 
form  a  conception  of  this  future  man  must  generalize  from  his 
M  experience  "  or  his  cognitions.  The  ability  to  do  so  depends  wholly 
upon  what  is  given  in  that  "  experience  "  or  cognition.  In  the  worlds 
of  space  and  time  we  find  the  static  conditions  which  enable  us  to 
entertain  at  least  some  universal  and  necessary  truths,  whether  we  con- 
sider them  as  formal  or  material.  In  the  physical  or  substantive  world 
the  conditions  are  different.  It  is  preeminently  a  dynamic  world,  a 
world  of  change  in  the  phenomenal  modes  which  supply  the  predicates 
of  all  propositions,  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  changeless  character 
of  the  subject.  There  is  no  guarantee  whatever  of  any  universal  and 
necessary  truth  in  this  world  of  perpetual  change,  unless  it  be  hypo- 
thetical. This  is  only  to  say  that  we  cannot  "  a  priori"  forecast  the 
future  in  the  physical  world  in  any  material  way.  Of  course  observa- 
tion shows  a  relatively  uniform  and  recurrent  law  in  the  happening  of 
phenomena,  so  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  "  nature  "  is  governed  by 
a  law  of  change,  there  are  unities,  consistencies,  uniformities,  what- 
ever their  conditions,  that  offer  a  basis  for  reasonable  expectation  of 
the  future,  and  though  we  cannot  draw  any  hard  and  fast  line  between 


256  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  certain  and  the  probable  in  concrete  cases  the  general  field  of  the 
two  kinds  of  modality  in  judgment  are  fairly  well  determinable.  In 
all  cases,  however,  the  law  is  "  empirical,"  that  is,  based  upon  obser- 
vation of  the  actual  uniformities  of  phenomena,  and  the  future  has  a 
probability  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  uniformity  or  coincidence 
involved.  Where  phenomena  exhibit  a  law  of  recurrence  there  is 
some  constancy  of  the  conditions  which  make  this  possible  and  gen- 
eralization becomes  a  safe  adventure.  But  in  all  cases,  whether  in  the 
mathematical  or  the  material  world,  the  generalization  has  its  validity 
determined  by  the  extent  to  which  it  embodies  the  law  of  identity  and 
difference.  In  the  mathematical  world  of  space  and  time  the  homo- 
geneity of  these  data,  their  unchangeableness,  is  a  guarantee  for  the 
"  a  priori"  universality  and  necessity  of  the  judgments  based  upon 
them.  In  the  material  world,  except  in  so  far  as  it  participates  in 
space  and  time  qualities,  -e««- its  phenomena,  be  predicted  at  all  with 
certainty.  Whatever  probabilities  generalization  may  have  in  this 
world  will  depend  upon  "  empirical "  observation  of  actual  uniformi- 
ties of  coexistence  and  sequence.  The  assured  generalization  in  these 
circumstances  will  be  mnemonic  or  that  of  simple  enumeration,  but  is 
not  previsionary  or  predictive  beyond  a  certain  degree  of  probability, 
as  measured  by  the  extent  to  which  the  principle  of  identity  has  been 
realized. 

In  the  mental  world  the  same  law  holds  good,  except  the  ideal 
world  of  formal  concepts  which  have  no  objective  existential  import 
apart  from  the  occasion  of  "experience."  Their  universality  is  a 
necessity  for  the  communication  of  ideas,  not  for  the  expression  of 
existing  facts  in -all  places  and  times.  The  universality  and  necessity 
assumed  in  any  of  these  formal  judgments  depends  upon  the  assumption 
that  the  subject  has  been  conceptually  identical  with  the  predicate  in 
some  respect  to  make  its  meaning  definite  at  all.  This  condition 
makes  such  judgments  a  mere  means  for  making  facts  intelligible  when 
they  occur,  not  of  assuring  their  recurrence.  They  do  not  predict  the 
future,  but  only  what  future  events  will  be,  if  they  occur  at  all.  In 
fact  this  may  even  be  said  of  all  judgments  of  the  universal  and  neces- 
sary kind,  including  the  mathematical.  I  do  not  find  it  necessary  to 
exempt  even  these  from  this  law  or  condition.  But  this  law  is  cer- 
tainly clearer  in  all  these  judgments  which  condition  their  universality 
upon  some  real  or  apparent  identification  of  subject  and  predicate, 
and  in  the  physical  world  this  often  appears  arbitrary.  For  instance, 
at  one  time  the  judgment  "All  metals  have  a  specific  gravity  greater 
than  water"  was  taken  as  a  settled  truth,  but  after  potassium,  sodium, 


THE    CRITERIA    OF   TRUTH.  257 

and  lithium  were  discovered  and  placed  among  tha  metals,  as  they  will 
float  on  water,  the  original  generalization  did  not  hold.  But  this  was 
because  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  what  a  "metal"  is  was  changed. 
When  that  proposition  asserting  a  specific  gravity  greater  than  water  was 
held  to  be  true  it  was  on  the  condition  that  this  specific  gravity  was  the 
test  of  the  application  of  the  term  and  any  insistence  upon  the  retention 
of  this  test  would  exclude  the  new  "metals"  from  the  class  to  be 
denominated  by  that  term.  It  was  only  the  selection  of  a  new  criterion 
or  characteristic  for  classification  that  changed  the  form  of  statement, 
though  it  did  not  alter  the  real  facts  of  nature.  But  we  see  in  the 
incident  that  whatever  universality  and  necessity  we  get  in  physical 
judgments  it  must  depend  upon  a  real  or  assumed  identity  between 
subject  and  predicate  terms,  even  when  the  "  realities"  expressed  by 
the  term  are  not  in  fact  identical.  The  identity  may  be  only  uni- 
formity of  implication  and  that  suffices  to  give  stability  of  meaning  to 
terms  and  conceptions,  which  is  necessary  to  interpret  the  facts  of 
nature  when  they  occur,  not  to  predetermine  their  occurrence. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND  OBJECTIVITY. 

In  defining  and  discussing  the  nature  of  sensation,  I  called  attention 
to  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between  sensation  and  apprehension, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  they  are  so  closely  associated  in  the  same  com- 
plex state  of  consciousness.  Indeed,  I  went  so  far  as  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  we  might  consider  them  as  terms  denoting  the  same  event 
spoken  of  in  different  relations,  apprehension  being  the  name  for  the 
mental  reaction  viewed  as  an  act  of  "  knowledge  "  and  sensation  as  the 
name  for  the  same  reaction  as  the  result  of  stimulus.  It  may  not  be 
necessary  to  conceive  the  terms  as  denoting  exactly  the  same  individual 
facts,  though  the  occasion  of  their  occurrence  seems  to  be  a  single  one. 
This  is  especially  true  if  we  are  likely,  in  doing  so,  to  imply  that  the 
state  concerned  is  not  a  complex  one.  It  is  quite  possible  to  conceive 
the  mental  reaction  against  stimulus  a  complex  of  at  least  two  func- 
tions, which  we  may  call  sensation  and  apprehension  and  then,  in  later 
"  experience,"  add  to  this  complex  the  various  functions  of  cognition. 
But  whether  simple  or  complex,  it  is  not  necessary  to  reconsider  these 
questions  further  than  to  remark  that  all  psychological  criticism  and 
discussion  centering  about  the  primary  functions  of  intelligence  soon 
have  to  meet  the  question  how  we  can  perceive  an  external  world. 
There  was  no  trouble  in  the  early  history  of  speculation  in  ascribing 
this  to  "  sensation."  But  as  time  went  on  philosophy  began  to  define 
and  describe  "sensation"  as  purely  "subjective,"  the  mind's  affair 
which  did  not  have  the  meaning  for  external  reality  which  it  was  once 
supposed  to  have,  that  reality  had  either  to  be  given  up  or  ascribed  to 
some  other  function,  such  as  "apprehension,"  "perception,"  "intui- 
tion," or  judgment.  This  new  way  of  presenting  the  case  conceded 
that  "  sensation  "  was  an  event  in  the  organism  and  without  any  "  per- 
ceptive "  reference  to  external  reality,  so  that  this  presumably  desired 
result  had  to  be  obtained  by  naming  a  special  function  for  the  purpose, 
especially  wherever  idealistic  solipsism  was  not  acceptable.  Whenever 
the  puzzling  question  as  to  how  we  could  "  know  "  external  reality  was 
raised,  if  "  sensation"  were  subjective,  the  common  sense  philosopher 
had  only  to  name  "intuition"  or  "perception"  as  the  process.  But 
such  an  answer  has  not  always  proved  satisfactory  and  the  question 
25S 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  259 

still  persists  wherever  we  are  impressed  with  the  "relative,"  "phe- 
nomenal" or  subjective  nature  of  "experience." 

In  discussing  the  process  of  synthetic  "  knowledge  "  or  Cognition,  I 
endeavored  to  present  processes  that  justified  a  belief  in  objectivity,  an 
external  world,  without  conditioning  it  upon  a  theory  of  space.  I 
relied  upon  the  principle  of  causality  for  the  evidence  of  an  external 
world,  using  the  idea,  however,  to  denote  externality  to  the  phenomena 
to  be  accounted  for  rather  than  the  externality  of  space  intuitions.  I 
come  now  to  discuss  the  same  general  problem  in  connection  with  the 
* '  perception  "  of  space,  which  I  think  the  question  best  calculated  to 
consider  in  connection  with  the  "perceptive"  process  in  relation  to 
sensation.  It  seems  possible  to  condition  our  "  knowledge"  of  exter- 
nal reality  upon  two  processes  instead  of  one,  namely,  the  categories 
of  space  and  causality  combined.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  space 
appears  in  our  ordinary  conception  as  the  chief  factor,  but  I  think  that 
the  total  of  our  judgment  will  be  found  to  comprehend  both,  causality 
as  determining  the  indefinite  notion  of  otherness  than  a  given  fact  and 
space  the  definite  sensory  datum  for  its  clearness.  I  do  not  mean  that 
causality  can  give  anything  spatial,  but  that  the  complex  conception  of 
objectivity  is  associated  with  both  space  and  cause  as  determinative  of 
it.  In  the  physical  universe  objectivity  is  usually  spatial  as  well  as 
causal,  and  it  is  space  that  indicates  the  plurality  of  the  elements  con- 
stituting the  known  cosmos  when  their  causal  relation  with  each  other 
reveals  their  unity  of  action  and  with  the  mind  their  existence.  But 
however  this  may  be,  a  position  not  necessary  to  affirm  here,  the  place 
which  the  idea  of  space  has  in  the  determination  of  externality  makes 
it  important  to  examine  our  perception  of  it  as  a  step  in  the  analysis  of 
"  knowledge"  and  in  the  interpretation  of  nature.  The  concrete  form 
which  externality  takes  in  our  conceptions  is  represented  by  some 
spatial  relation  and  as  the  determination  of  -this  is  closely  associated 
with  sensation  and  "  perception  "  or  apprehension,  the  process  of  reach- 
ing externality  and  objectivity  can  be  best  studied  in  those  "phe- 
nomena "  of  experience  which  can  be  analyzed  into  their  elements  and 
their  function  in  the  whole  determined  accordingly.  By  this  I  mean 
that  what  "  perception"  refally  does  in  connection  with  objectivity  can 
be  studied  in  connection  with  space  "  intuitions  "  more  effectively  than 
in  any  other  "  phenomena." 

There  are  two  closely  related  problems  in  space  "  perception " 
historically  considered.  The  first  is  the  genesis  and  the  second 
the  nature  of  the  conception  of  space.  The  theories  of  genesis 
divided  into  "empiricism"  and  "  nativism,"  and  those  of  its  nature 


260  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

into  the  realistic  or  objective  and  the  idealistic  or  subjective  nature 
of  space. 

It  was  the  doctrine  of  Kant  that  gave  importance  to  the  problem  of 
space  "  perception."  Had  it  not  been  for  that  philosopher's  paradoxi- 
cal assertions  about  the  nature  of  space  and  its  "  perception"  we 
should  have  probably  taken  this  datum  of  "  knowledge  "  as  a  dogmatic 
object  of  faith  much  as  did  the  Cartesians  and  Lockians.  Previous  to 
Kant  no  special  theory  of  ' '  knowledge  "  or  metaphysics  depended  so 
absolutely  upon  any  particular  doctrine  of  space  and  its  "  perception," 
or  drew  such  consequences  from  them  as  did  Kant.  This  theory  con- 
sisted in  a  double  qualification  of  its  nature.  He  described  it  as  a 
"  form  of  intuition  "  and  qualified  this  as  a  priori  and  subjective.  Ex- 
actly what  he  meant  by  this  will  be  the  subject  of  further  inquiry  again, 
but  it  pointed  to  idealistic  associations  as  the  development  of  his  phil- 
osophy has  shown.  In  the  ./Esthetic  Kant  admitted  that  space  was 
also  objective  as  well  as  subjective,  and  in  the  Analytic  he  seems  to 
regard  it  as  wholly  subjective.  But  leaving  real  or  apparent  incon- 
sistencies aside,  the  spirit  of  his  position  in  both  looks  toward  a  con- 
ception of  space  which  has  always  appeared  as  paradoxical  to  common 
sense,  namely,  that  it  was  an  ideal  and  subjective  product  of  the  mind. 
That  it  was  a  "native"  or  "  intuitive  perception"  was  the  generally 
accepted  doctrine  after  Descartes,  but  no  one  had  attempted  to  describe 
this  "native  perception"  as  subjective  until  Kant  ventured  upon  the 
assertion.  The  consequent  idealization  of  "knowledge"  and  "  reality," 
whatever  such  idealization  meant,  had  so  many  revolutionary  implica- 
tions in  philosophic  thought  that  it  created  much  offence  in  the  ranks 
of  common  sense  and  science.  Common  sense  did  not  like  the  ideal- 
ism founded  upon  it  and  the  scientist  did  not  like  the  doctrine  of  the 
"  a  priori"  which  appeared  so  antagonistic  to  his  theory  of  "  experi- 
ence." With  the  one  the  reduction  of  everything  to  states  of  mind  was 
absurd  and  with  the  other  induction  and  experience  were  the  sources 
of  all  "  knowledge."  Both  schools  of  thought  conceived  it  their  in- 
terest to  attack  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  idealism,  assumed  to  be  as  absurd 
to  the  scientist  as  to  common  sense,  by  depriving  it  of  its  foundation, 
which  as  I  have  said,  Kant  had  placed  in  the  a  priori  and  ideal  nature 
of  space  and  time.  The  scientific  man  attacked  its  a  priori  nature  and 
the  common  sense  philosopher  its  ideality.  Between  the  two  it  was 
hoped  to  eradicate  idealism  and  a  priorism.  The  consequence  was  a 
vast  literature  and  direct  experimentation  to  determine  the  issues  raised 
by  the  alleged  significance  of  the  Kantian  doctrine.  The  fact,  how- 
ever, was  that  the  Kantian  system  was   less  dangerous  to  science  and 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  26 1 

less  antagonistic  to  the  existing  philosophy  as  a  whole  than  was  sup- 
posed. The  real  conflict  between  science  and  transcendentalism  lay  in 
their  associations.  The  one  was  liberal  and  the  other  conservative  in 
its  afflliations.  Science  had  attached  itself  to  progress  and  revolu- 
tionary tendencies.  Transcendentalism,  whatever  its  sceptical  im- 
pulses, had  easily  adjusted  itself  to  the  conservative  institutions  of 
society  resisting  change  and  the  dissolution  of  tradition.  As  the  whole 
apparently  revolutionary  system  was  consciously  made  to  depend  upon 
the  a  priori  and  subjective  nature  of  space  and  time,  the  scientific  mind 
resolved  to  remove  this  keystone  to  the  arch  of  the  structure  and  con- 
sequently directed  his  experimental  investigations  to  proving  that  space 
"perception"  was  "empirical,"  assuming  that  he  had  not  to  discuss 
any  of  the  larger  philosophic  problems  ostensibly  founded  upon  the 
Kantian  theory  of  space  and  time.  The  common  sense  philosopher, 
with  the  same  object  in  view  and  admitting  the  a  priori  or  "  intuitive  " 
nature  of  space  and  time,  attacked  their  ideality. 

The  outcome,  however,  has  not  been  what  was  expected.  It  was 
thought  that  the  refutation  of  the  a  priori  "  perception  "  of  space  would 
disqualify  the  idealism  founded  upon  that  doctrine,  but,  as  the  Nemesis 
of  scepticism  would  have  it,  Wundt,  an  empiricist  in  the  doctrine  of 
space  "  perception,"  definitely  claims  that  this  view  affords  a  better  basis 
for  the  Kantian  idealism  than  Kant's  own  conception  of  its  condition. 
In  fact  the  solution  of  the  problem  has  been  found  not  to  be  so  easy  as 
was  at  first  imagined.  The  complexities  and  equivocations  involved 
in  the  conception  of  space  suffice  to  take  the  dogmatism  out  of  both 
theories  of  its  genesis,  and  now  no  one  cares  whether  space ' '  perception  " 
is  "  empirical  "  or  "a  priori."  No  such  philosophic  consequences  for 
its  nativity  as  Kant  claimed  for  it  are  so  uncompromisingly  recognized, 
and  "  a  priori  "  has  come  to  imply  its  subjectivity  as  much  as  anything 
else.  The  controversy  has  changed  from  its  genesis  to  its  nature, 
whatever  its  genesis.  Hence  the  issue  has  completely  shifted  from  the 
psychogonical  to  the  epistemological  problem  which  lies  on  the 
boundaries  of  metaphysical  speculation. 

A  few  remarks  may  be  necessary  at  the  outset  of  our  study  of  this 
question  in  order  to  indicate  what  we  shall  have  to  face  in  the  conclu- 
sion. They  pertain  to  the  complexity  of  the  problem  which  is  much 
greater  than  Kant  ever  supposed.  If  we  could  assume  that  the  "  per- 
ception "  of  space  involved  no  complexity  of  function  and  judgment 
and  if  we  could  assume  that  the  conception  of  it  involved  no  definition 
and  analysis  prior  to  the  study  of  its  genesis  we  might  very  much  sim- 
plify our  problem.     But  we  have  learned  from  various  experimental 


262  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sources  that  it  is  one  of  the  most  complicated  of  our  psychological 
questions.  It  is  not  a  problem  of  metaphysical  consequences  attaching 
to  any  theory  of  origin  but  only  to  its  nature,  and  besides  the  whole 
question  of  origin  is  so  complicated  by  the  complexity  of  the  elements 
entering  into  the  idea  of  space  that  the  philosophic  interest  attaching 
to  the  former  conception  of  its  simplicity  has  been  lost. 

In  choosing  between  nativism  and  empiricism,  as  theories  of 
space  "  perception,"  we  have  first  to  ask  whether  the  question  with 
one  or  the  other  of  these  theories  is  that  of  definite  or  that  of  indefinite 
space,  that  of  localization  definitely  represented,  or  that  of  the  general 
space  quale  which  we  distinguish  from  other  and  associated  charac- 
teristics in  the  sensation.  Accepting  the  distinction  between  definite 
and  indefinite  space  the  theories  of  empiricism  and  nativism  might  be 
reconciled,  if  that  term  is  usable,  by  dividing  the  territory,  empiricism 
taking  that  of  definite  space  or  localization  and  nativism  taking  that  of 
indefinite  space  or  the  extensive  quale. 

But  the  problem  is  still  more  complicated,  and  in  a  twofold  man- 
ner. There  is  first  the  question  of  the  spatial  quale  in  the  individual 
senses,  especially  those  of  vision,  touch,  and  hearing :  and  secondly 
their  relation  to  each  other  in  "experience."  In  regard  to  the  first 
of  these  some  will  insist  that  space  is  not  a  common  sensible,  but  an 
object  of  one  of  the  senses  and  having  an  associative  equivalent  in  the 
others,  something  from  which  the  presence  of  an  associated  spatial 
quale  is  inferable.  Others  will  insist  that  space  is  a  common  sensible, 
representing  a  like  characteristic  in  at  least  three  of  the  senses.  I 
think  that  much  can  be  said  for  the  truth  of  both  claims  though 
with  qualifications.  It  is  true  that  there  are  elements  in  the  sensations 
of  each  sense  that  are  wholly  different  in  character  from  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  other  senses.  Color  and  sound  have  no  common  quali- 
ties, nor  hardness  and  color,  though  mutually  associable.  It  is  possi- 
ble to  view  the  spatial  quale  of  each  sense  in  the  same  way,  except 
that  there  must  be  something  common  about  the  spatial  element  in 
order  that  the  term  ' '  space "  may  be  legitimately  applicable  to  the 
content  at  all.  But  in  spite  of  this  the  two  or  more  qualia  may  have 
accompanying  differences  which  it  may  require  experience  to  eliminate 
for  the  discovery  of  the  common  characteristics.  It  is  very  probable 
that  the  criterial  space  "  percept "  is  taken  from  one  of  the  senses, 
usually  the  visual  phantasm,  and  the  others  adjusted  to  this  by  experi- 
ence and  association. 

The  view  here  taken  will  indicate  the  answer  to  the  question  whether 
the  conception  of  space  is  abstract  or  concrete.     Kant  emphatically 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  263 

denied  that  it  was  an  abstract  general  concept,  but  he  gave  no  definite 
affirmation  or  description  of  what  it  was,  except  to  call  it  a  "  pure  in- 
tuition," which  has  no  meaning  whatever  as  an  intelligible  account  of 
it.  It  is  probable  that  Kant  took  his  conception  of  space  wholly  from 
vision,  from  the  visual  phantasm  or  expanse.  If  he  ever  admitted 
tacitly  or  otherwise  that  a  space  "percept"  was  possible  in  other 
senses,  he  probably  conceived  it  as  exactly  the  same  as  in  vision. 
Kant  is  absolutely  silent  on  this  matter.  If  he  limited  it  to  the  "  intui- 
tion "  of  vision,  it  is  clear  why  he  denied  that  it  was  a  general  abstract 
concept.  But  as  it  is  possible  to  recognize  a  spatial  quale  in  several 
senses  and  as,  with  the  differential  characteristics  in  them,  there  are 
data  for  an  abstract  concept  of  space,  which  is  more  than  probably  a 
fact,  even  if  the  matrix  out  of  which  it  is  formed  is  obtained  from  one 
of  the  senses  and  other  experiences  interpreted  in  terms  of  it,  we  may 
find  a  basis  for  an  interpretation  of  its  meaning  somewhat  different  from 
the  usual  one  ascribed  to  Kant.  But  this  conclusion  that  the  idea  of 
space  may  be  abstract  does  not  interfere  with  the  main  contention  of 
Kant  that  it  is  unique  in  its  character  and  that  our  view  of  the  nature 
of  space  affects  metaphysical  problems  while  its  genesis  does  not. 

In  the  light  of  the  analysis  of  space  conceptions  just  indicated, 
showing  that  they  may  represent  both  a  definite  and  an  indefinite 
"  percept"  and  both  an  abstract  idea  and  a  number  of  concrete  forms, 
it  will  be  useless  to  decide  the  merits  of  the  controversy  between  em- 
piricism and  nativism  in  any  other  way  than  to  accord  both  of  them  a 
relative  justification.  It  will  then  devolve  upon  us  to  examine  the 
nature  of  space  "  perception"  as  a  condition  of  estimating  its  relation 
to  the  "  knowledge"  of  objectivity. 

The  immemorial  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  has  been  connected  with 
the  question  whether  we  could  ever  "  know  "  anything  beyond  our  men- 
tal states  and  affections.  This  we  have  indicated  in  previous  discus- 
sions. In  thus  defining  it,  I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  complexities  and 
equivocations  of  such  a  formula  lurking  in  the  terms  "knowledge," 
"beyond  mental  states,"  etc.  I  am  only  stating  a  form  of  conception 
which  is  not  of  my  own  making  and  which  at  least  appears  to  confine 
"  knowledge"  to  the  functions  of  the  organism  or  mind  in  the  sense 
that  its  boundaries  are  to  be  defined  by  the  limits  of  the  organism  itself. 
It  is  not  my  task  here  to  define  or  analyze  the  formula  or  to  determine 
what  is  true  or  false  in  it,  but  only  to  indicate  for  the  present  that  the 
result  of  conceptions  antecedent  to  the  adoption  of  the  formula  has 
brought  men  to  state  their  conclusion  in  this  language  with  its  real  or 
apparent  import.     How  this  movement  began  we  shall  see  in  a  moment. 


264  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  long  after  it  had  seized  speculation  the  triumphant  refutation  of 
scepticism  was  based  upon  the  accepted  integrity,  that  is,  objective 
import,  of  our  idea  of  space  and  its  impregnability  against  sceptical 
analysis  and  attack.  But  the  Kantian  claim  that  space  is  "subjective 
and  ideal,"  whatever  Kant  meant  by  it,  reanimated  the  old  controversy, 
and,  at  least  in  the  light  of  traditional  conceptions  and  implications 
of  the  terms  "subjective"  and  "ideal,"  suggested  the  limitation  of 
"knowledge"  to  states  of  consciousness  in  a  more  radical  sense  than 
ever.  While  previous  thought,  accepting  the  relativity  of  our  "  knowl- 
edge "  of  matter,  had  still  remained  by  the  objectivity  of  space,  the  new 
position  taken  by  Kant,  applying  the  same  language  of  relativity  to  space, 
left  the  imagination  with  nothing  but  the  subject  and  its  own  evanescent 
states  as  the  objects  of  "  knowledge."  What  it  meant  in  the  field  of 
"  perception"  was  that  we  could  "perceive"  only  what  we  have  "  in 
experience  "  :  that  is,  nothing  "  outside  "  consciousness,  and  so  at  least 
apparently  outside  the  organism,  could  supposedly  be  "  known."  The 
range  of  the  "  knowable  "  was  limited  to  the  states  "  known"  or  had 
as  actions  of  the  subject. 

The  "  phenomena  "  of  illusions  have  been  the  most  important  influ- 
ence in  suggesting  the  way  in  which  the  limits  of  ' '  perception  "  shall 
be  determined.  They  indicate  that  the  supposed  reality  beyond  the 
mental  state  and  which  is  so  confidently  assumed  in  normal  conditions 
may  be  nothing  more  than  the  subjective  act.  The  resemblance  be- 
tween the  illusion  and  the  normal  state,  between  the  "phenomenal" 
and  the  "real,"  is  so  close  that  the  unity  between  them  is  gotten  by 
eliminating  the  "  reality"  of  the  normal,  the  only  difference  between 
the  two  being  that  the  "  reality"  which  may  be  assumed  to  be  infer- 
ential is  liable  to  error,  so  that  certified  "  knowledge"  appears  to  be 
confined  to  the  subjective.  Valid  "  perception"  seems  thus  to  be  re- 
alized as  fully  in  illusions  as  in  the  supposed  normal  consciousness,  the 
"reality"  of  whose  external  object  seems  dubious  because  it  is  infer- 
ential. Briefly  stated  again,  the  formula  of  the  idealistic  doctrine  seems 
to  indicate  that  we  can  "perceive"  only  what  we  have;  that  is, 
"  knowing"  and  "  being"  are  identical,  or  esse  is  percipi. 

The  rise  and  development  of  this  conception  is  an  interesting  bit  of 
history.  I  mean,  of  course,  in  reflective  and  speculative  thought. 
The  whole  doctrine  got  its  inception  from  the  naive  materialism  of 
Empedocles  which  was  most  probably  a  reflection  of  common  notions 
at  the  time.  The  manner  in  which  Empedocles  accounted  for  sense 
perception  by  the  impact  of  eidola  or  corpuscular  effluvia  upon  the  sen- 
sorium,  eidola  which  were  the  facsimile  of  the  objects  from  which 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE   AND    OBJECTIVITY.  265 

they  were  projected,  appears  to  us  absurd  enough,  especially  from  the 
point  of  view  of  evidence.  But  it  illustrates  clearly  the  assumption 
that  there  is  some  qualitative  resemblance  between  the  ' '  impression " 
and  the  stimulus  or  cause  of  sense  "  perception."  The  figure  of  a  seal 
and  the  wax  even  in  Aristotle  carried  the  same  implications  with  it  and 
probably  affected  the  conceptions  of  antiquity  to  a  large  extent.  The 
Greek  admitted  the  distance  of  the  object  from  the  sensorium,  but  be- 
cause he  could  not  admit  any  doctrine  of  actio  in  distans  he  could  not 
account  for  the  "  knowledge  "  of  the  object  without  importing  into  the 
process  the  conception  of  contact  with  the  subject  and  a  structural  re- 
semblance between  the  object  and  the  "  impression,"  probably  because 
of  his  monistic  philosophy  assuming  a  larger  measure  of  identity  be- 
tween thought  and  reality  than  modern  speculation.  That  is  to  say, 
though  "  knowledge  "  was  not  limited  to  the  subjective  state,  there  was 
some  kind  of  identity  between  objects  and  "  knowledge,"  the  "  reality  " 
and  the  "impression"  being  similar,  while  the  intermediate  distance 
between  them  was  traversed  by  eidola  resembling  both  of  them. 

But  this  naive  corpuscular  theory  was  very  soon  supplanted  by  the 
doctrine  that  it  was  not  eidola  but  motion  that  affected  the  subject  by- 
passing through  the  space  intervening  between  it  and  the  object,  and 
hence  served  as  the  mediate  stimulus  of  the  sensorium  as  did  the 
assumed  eidola.  Here  the  whole  conception  of  the  case  is  changed. 
In  the  Empedoclean  view  the  assumption  of  identity  between  the  "  im- 
pression "  and  the  eidola,  and  between  the  eidola  and  the  object,  suf- 
ficed to  justify  the  belief  about  the  nature  of  the  object.  But  in  this 
new  view,  depending  upon  the  mediating  and  causal  agency  of  motion, 
there  was  no  definite  indication  at  first  that  motion  and  object  were 
like  each  other.  In  fact  it  was  rather  distinctly  assumed  that  they  were 
different,  and  as  the  older  conception  of  the  object  still  prevailed  the 
analogy  of  the  seal  and  the  wax  did  not  apply.  Consequently,  the  in- 
evitable tendency  of  the  new  conception  was  to  set  up  an  antithesis  of 
kind  between  some  of  the  data  involved  in  sense  "  perception."  There 
were  three  things  to  be  considered:  object,  motion  and  "impres- 
sion." Until  Plato  came  to  revise  the  problem  the  motion  was  not 
like  the  object,  and  then  the  problem  was  to  determine  how  the  exter- 
nal object,  separated  from  the  "  impression"  and  unlike  the  mediating 
cause,  could  be  "  known."  The  consequence  was,  owing  to  the  con- 
tinued prevalence  of  the  assumption  that  contact  was  necessary  to 
"knowledge,"  that  "perception"  was  limited  to  the  sensory  state, 
whatever  that  was,  and  the  further  assumption  made  that  this  state  was 
not  an  indication  of  the  nature  of  the  object  external  to  it.     The  logical 


266  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

outcome  was  the  doctrine  of  the  Sophists  which  was  reinforced  by  the 
general  relativity  of  "  knowledge,"  this  being  based  upon  the  fact  of 
illusions  as  well  as  the  assumption  of  contact  with  the  organism  as  a 
condition  of  "  knowledge,"  though  the  contact  was  that  of  the  medi- 
ating motion  and  not  the  object  or  an  eidolon.  The  Sophist  still 
assumed  the  identity  of  the  "  object"  and  the  "  impression"  (thought 
and  reality),  but  he  did  not  locate  the  "  object  "  beyond  the  subject  in 
his  conception  of  the  thing  "  known."  The  sense  of  antithesis  remained 
between  the  external  "  object  "  and  the  "  impression,"  but  for  "  knowl- 
edge" this  external  "object"  was  nil,  the  "real"  object  being  the 
mental  state,  and  the  other  remained  merely  as  a  concession  to  inherited 
convictions  which  were  hard  to  eradicate,  even  though  the  logic  of 
the  case  at  least  apparently  requires  this  to  be  done. 

The  most  important  thing  to  remark  at  this  juncture  of  the  case  is 
the  fact  that  later  thought  never  returned  to  the  na'ive  conceptions  of 
Empedocles  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the  process  of  "  perception" 
phenomenally  intelligible.  The  influence  of  the  conception  of  motion 
was  too  great  to  permit  this  reaction.  The  speculative  philosopher 
felt  obliged  in  the  field  of  vision,  which  was  considered  as  the  primary 
source  of  "knowledge,"  as  the  statement  of  Aristotle  proves,  to  aban- 
don the  conception  of  contact  as  an  explanation  of  "  perception  "  and 
consequently  had  a  perpetual  puzzle  before  him  in  the  question : 
"  How  can  we  '  perceive'  what  is  not  consciousness,  or  what  is  not  in 
the  contact  with  the  organism?  ",  or  "  How  can  objects  at  a  distance  be 
'  known  '  at  all?  "  when  what  is  "  known"  coincides  with  the  "  im- 
pression" involving  the  idea  of  contact  as  the  condition  of  "knowl- 
edge." Presumably  objects  are  not  "  known"  at  a  distance  in  tactual 
experience  which  is  the  most  fundamental  source  of  our  conception 
of  "  sensation,"  according  to  the  usual  assumptions,  while  vision  is 
predominantly  the  "perceptive"  sense,  as  touch  is  the  measure  of 
sensation.  In  touch  the  supposed  external  object  and  the  sensation 
have  the  same  locus,  the  sensorium  or  organism  :  in  vision  the  common 
assumption  is  that  the  object  is  not  in  contact  with  the  organism,  and 
the  very  existence  of  it  is  presumably  an  inference  from  the  experience 
of  touch  and  other  senses  where  contact  is  the  condition  of  the  reac- 
tion. But  as  the  motion  (vibration  in  modern  parlance)  which  is 
generally  supposed  to  issue  from  the  object  does  not  represent  the 
object  in  kind,  but  does  satisfy  the  principle  of  contact,  according  to 
the  accepted  view,  in  vision,  while  tactual  experience  and  the  assump- 
tions associated  with  it  determine  the  tendency  to  interpret  sensation  as 
functionally  limited  to  the  locus  of  the  sensorium,  the  inevitable  result 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  267 

is  to  interpret  visual  phenomena  in  terms  of  the  principle  of  touch  when 
speaking  of  sensation,  the  object  in  this  sense  being  and  acting  where 
it  is,  so  that  in  sight  the  object  at  a  distance  becomes  "  unknown  "  and 
the  only  thing  "known"  is  the  "  phenomenon "  or  "experience." 
Apparently  we  seem  forced  to  interpret  vision  by  touch  or  touch  by 
vision,  and  as  contact  and  sensation  are  the  condition  of  representing 
its  function,  and  distance  and  "  perception "  the  condition  of  repre- 
senting the  function  of  vision,  the  only  unity  of  conception  between 
them  will  be  found  by  accepting  one  or  the  other  as  the  type,  and  to 
the  idealist  that  conception  is  the  contact  of  touch,  with  the  object  at  a 
distance  as  "  unknown."  If  the  general  visual  process  is  to  be  inter- 
preted by  the  assumptions  of  tactual  experience,  these  being  in  terms 
of  contact  and  its  causal  meaning,  visual  "  perception  "  has  the  same 
limitations  on  the  assumption  that  this  process  cannot  transcend  the 
events  occurring  in  the  sensorium.  If  touch  is  to  be  interpreted  by  the 
analogies  of  vision,  where  the  object  either  directly  or  indirectly 
"  known  "  is  supposed  not  to  be  in  contact,  we  come  into  conflict  with 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  "  perceive  "  the  tactual  object  at  a  distance. 
The  consequence  is  that  we  get  our  unity  of  conception  in  the  general 
idea  of  sensation  which  limits  its  nature  and  meaning  to  the  area  of  the 
sensorium  and  the  object  must  be  there  in  order  to  be  "  known,"  or  if 
it  is  supposed  to  be  at  a  distance,  it  is  apparently  a  conjectural  thing. 
Now  as  the  principle  of  identity  had  all  along  been  assumed  to  deter- 
mine all  intelligibility,  that  is,  to  make  things  understandable  in  terms 
of  like  kind,  this  new  assumption  of  an  antithesis  between  thought  and 
reality,  of  difference  between  sensation  and  the  object  causing  it  and 
not  a  part  of  the  consciousness  "  knowing"  it,  only  availed  to  make 
the  object  unintelligible  according  to  accepted  standards  of  identity. 
The  conception  of  it  at  a  distance,  with  motion  as  the  mediating  agency 
for  affecting  the  sensorium  and  the  "  known  "  thing  being  presumably 
only  in  the  subject,  results  in  the  tendency  to  interpret  vision  by  the 
assumptions  and  conceptions  of  touch  as  the  standard  of  judgment,  and 
to  consciousness  the  object  at  a  distance  is  nil  or  conjectural.  Or  to 
put  the  same  thought  in  another  way,  what  is  not  a  qualitative  part 
of  the  "impression"  cannot  be  "known,"  if  the  ordinary  criterion 
of  "  knowledge  "  from  the  experience  of  touch  be  accepted. 

This  conclusion,  as  the  conception  of  philosophy,  brings  us  to  the 
doctrine  of  Berkeley  who  seems  to  have  been  under  the  influence  of  as- 
sumptions which  he  did  not  analyze.  His  whole  discussion  of  space 
"  perception  "  was  governed  by  the  assumption  that  what  was  not  "  in  " 
the  sensation  or  "  impression  "  could  not  be  "  perceived."    This  doctrine 


268  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

was  embodied  in  his  formula  "  esse  is  per  dpi."  The  physiologists 
of  the  same  time  evidently  took  the  same  view  assumptively,  though 
they  never  exactly  formulated  it.  But  their  conception  of  the  condi- 
tions of  "  perceiving  "  space  at  all  involved  the  idea  that  what  is  "  per- 
ceived" must  be  represented  in  kind  in  the  image  or  "  impression" 
when  space  was  the  "percept." 

The  most  important  fact  to  note  in  Berkeley's  position  is  his  argu- 
ment to  exclude  the  nativity  of  the  visual  "perception"  of  the  third 
dimension.  It  was  in  clear  accordance  with  the  assumptions  which 
have  just  been  indicated.  The  argument  used  by  him  against  the  or- 
ganic and  natural  "  perception"  of  distance  in  vision  was  that  the  third 
dimension  was  not  found  in  the  image  on  the  retina.  At  the  very  out- 
set of  the  "  Theory  of  Vision  "  he  says  :  "  It  is,  I  think,  agreed  by  all 
that  distance  of  itself,  and  immediately  cannot  be  seen.  For  distance 
being  a  line  directed  endwise  to  the  eye,  it  projects  only  one  point  in 
the  fund  of  the  eye  —  which  point  remains\invariably  the  same, 
whether  the  distance  be  longer  or  shorter."  In  a  later  section  he  says  : 
"It  is  plain  that  distance  is  in  its  own  nature  imperceptible." 
Again  :  "  From  what  hath  been  premised,  it  is  a  manifest  consequence 
that  a  man  born  blind,  being  made  to  see,  would  at  first  have  no  idea 
of  distance  by  sight :  the  sun  and  stars,  the  remotest  objects  as  well  as 
the  nearer,  would  all  seem  to  be  in  the  eye,  or  rather  in  his  mind."  In 
many  other  passages  Berkeley  reiterates  the  same  thought.  But  these 
quotations  suffice  to  show  that  he  thought  the  presence  of  the  third 
dimension,  or  solidity  in  the  visual  "  impression,"  was  necessary  to  its 
immediate  "perception"  by  that  sense.  The  plausibility  of  the  as- 
sumption rested  upon  the  fact  that  plane  dimension  was  found  in  the 
retinal  image  precisely  as  conceived,  while  it  was  clear  from  the  law  of 
optics  in  the  transmission  of  light  and  the  production  of  images  that  no 
solidity  was  present  in  the  "  impression."  Though  Berkeley  was  care- 
ful to  assert  over  and  over  again  that  there  was  no  resemblance  between 
the  "  percepts  "  of  touch  and  vision,  he  assumed,  in  the  interpretation 
of  vision  the  principle  of  contact  and  identity  of  representation  in  that 
sense  between  object  and  image  as  necessary  to  give  solidity,  and  not 
finding  this  condition  present  limited  the  "percept"  to  the  optical 
phantasm  and  said  "  esse  is  percipi."  It  did  not  occur  to  Berkeley 
that  the  asserted  difference  between  the  two  senses  might  involve  the 
instinctive  "perception"  of  the  third  dimension  and  that  there  might 
be  other  conditions  than  a  spatial  quale  in  the  "  impression"  to  deter- 
mine the  naturalness  of  space  "  perception  "  in  that  sense. 

But  when  he  came  to  discuss  the  "  perception  "  of  plane  dimension, 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  269 

he  denied  its  nativity  on  other  grounds  than  the  absence  of  it  in  the 
retinal  "  impression,"  and  virtually  abandoned  the  assumption  which 
was  so  necessary  to  the  validity  of  his  argument  regarding  solidity. 
He  based  the  denial  of  the  nativity  of  magnitude  or  plane  dimension 
upon  the  relativity  of  its  "perception,"  that  is,  upon  the  quantitative 
variations  between  the  dimension  of  the  image  and  the  dimensional 
quantity  of  the  object  seen.  He  noted  the  fact  that  the  spatial  magni- 
tude of  objects  remained  the  same  for  judgment  at  any  and  all  dis- 
tances while  the  image  was  smaller  for  the  greater  than  for  nearer  dis- 
tances. But  as  his  argument  against  the  native  "  perception"  of  soli- 
dity was  based  upon  the  assumption  that,  to  be  "  known"  directly,  it 
must  be  in  the  image,  he  ought  to  have  seen  that  the  admission  of  plane 
dimension  in  the  retina,'  whether  quantitatively  identical  and  corre- 
sponding to  the  dimensional  quality  of  the  object  or  not,  was  neces- 
sarily a  guarantee  for  the  nativity  of  the  space  "percept"  in  plane 
dimension,  so  that  the  facts  to  which  he  appealed  to  disprove  it  only 
showed  a  quantitative  difference  between  the  retinal  quale  and  the 
spatial  quale  of  the  object.  In  fact  it  was  logically  necessary  to  admit 
or  assume  the  nativity  of  plane  dimension  in  order  to  make  the  funda- 
mental argument  good  against  the  nativity  of  the  third  dimension.  If 
the  absence  of  a  dimension  in  the  image  prevents  its  native  "  percep- 
tion," its  presence  there  ought  to  determine  this  "  perception."  For 
if  this  is  not  true  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  supposition  that  solidity 
is  native  in  spite  of  its  absence  from  the  retinal  image.  But  since  the 
assumption  of  plane  dimension  in  the  retinal  "  impression,"  according 
to  the  use  made  of  it  in  regard  to  solidity,  enforces  a  conclusion  which 
is  contradicted  by  the  conclusion  from  the  relativity  of  magnitude,  as 
drawn  by  Berkeley,  and  since  his  doctrine  denied  the  nativity  of  space 
"  perception  "  throughout  vision,  we  can  only  conclude  that  this  denial 
had  to  be  maintained  independently  of  the  question  whether  the  retinal 
image  contained  the  dimensional  quale  "  perceived  "  or  not.  The 
abandonment  of  this  point  of  view,  however,  indicates  either  that  his 
fundamental  assumption  was  not  valid  or  that  his  consistency  required 
him  to  admit  the  nativity  of  plane  dimension  in  spite  of  the  quantitative 
difference  between  the  image  and  the  dimensional  quale  of  the  object. 
For  on  the  assumption  of  the  conditions  excluding  the  "perception" 
of  solidity,  he  must  admit  either  the  nativity  of  plane  dimension  or 
that  its  presence  in  the  image  does  not  determine  its  "  perception." 
The  former  alternative  contradicts  his  general  doctrine  and  the  latter 
contradicts  his  assumption  necessary  to  prove  the  acquired  character  of 
the  third  dimension  in  vision.    Now  if  the  presence  of  the  dimensional 


270  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

quale  in  the  image  does  not  necessitate  its  natural  "perception,"  its 
absence  from  the  image  cannot  prevent  the  "  perception  "  of  it  directly. 
This  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  whole  argument  adopted  by 
Berkeley,  and  it  means  that  we  cannot  assume  that  the  quale  "  known" 
is  necessarily  a  part  of  the  content  or  nature  of  the  "impression." 
This  fact  once  granted  the  whole  Berkeleian  doctrine  becomes  ground- 
less. It  will  be  apparent  from  such  a  result  and  from  the  supposition 
that  the  "percept"  may  not  be  a  part  of  the  "impression"  qualita- 
tively, that  the  doctrine  of  "perception,"  "intuition"  or  apprehen- 
sion, as  conceived  by  the  phenomenalist  or  idealist,  must  be  profoundly 
affected  thereby,  whether  for  good  or  ill.  Berkeley  was  unconsciously 
governed  in  his  judgment  of  the  case  by  the  principle  of  identity,  as- 
suming that  there  must  be  some  identity  between  "impression"  and 
"percept"  to  guarantee  the  nativity  of  the  latter.  If,  however,  we 
discover  that  this  identity  between  the  quale  of  image  and  the  "per- 
cept "  is  not  necessary  to  insure  the  proper  ' '  perception  "  of  the  object 
and  its  quale,  we  have  found  a  condition  of  things  in  which  the  prin- 
ciple of  identity  does  not  supply  the  only  terms  of  which  "  knowledge  " 
of  external  reality  is  assured.  We  saw  this  to  be  true  in  the  treatment 
of  judgment  and  cognitive  "  knowledge  "  of  reality,  and  now  the  same 
conclusion  seems  to  hold  good  in  regard  to  the  apprehension  of  space. 
Further  discussion  may  make  this  clearer. 

We  know  that  Berkeley  explained  the  visual  "  perception  "  of  space 
by  association  or  suggestion  from  muscular  and  tactual  experience. 
But  it  never  occurred  to  him  that  it  was  quite  as  easy  to  raise  the 
sceptical  question  in  regard  to  the  nativity  of  space  in  touch  as  in  sight. 
Of  course,  he  was  not  likely  to  suspect  this,  as  his  assumption  of  the 
principle  of  contact  and  the  representation  of  the  quale  "  perceived  " 
in  the  impression  "  induced  him  to  accept  tactual  space  without  analy- 
sis or  scepticism.  It  was  all  very  nice  for  a  paradoxical  philosophy 
to  beg  the  question  in  one  of  the  senses  while  applying  criticism  to 
another.  How  the  association  of  a  tactual  quale  with  vision  is  possible 
when  there  is  nothing  common  between  two  senses,  according  to 
Berkeley,  is  not  clear  in  any  sense  implying  a  similar  object  of  appre- 
hension. Nothing  in  vision  could  be  called  a  spatial  quale,  so  that  the 
association  could  not  involve  an  identical  datum.  If,  in  spite  of  the 
appearance  to  the  contrary,  a  space  "  percept"  is  not  natural  to  visual 
experience,  the  sceptical  question  is  as  easily  raised  elsewhere  as  in 
this  sense.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  me,  that  there  is  no  more  reason  to 
suppose  that  space  is  native  in  touch  than  in  sight.  Berkeley's  argu- 
ment may  puzzle  those  who  cannot  have  the  last  word  with  a  philoso- 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  271 

pher,  but  it  does  not  disturb  the  equanimity  of  those  who  feel  as  capa- 
ble of  deciding  what  they  see  with  their  eyes,  whether  subjective  or 
objective,  as  they  are  of  deciding  what  they  feel  with  their  hands.  Of 
course,  we  may  neither  feel  nor  see  anything.  I  shall  not  here  deny 
a  consistent  scepticism.  But  I  should  not  be  troubled  any  more  with 
the  phenomena  of  vision  than  with  those  of  touch.  I  agree  that  there 
is  a  quale  in  touch  that  becomes  associated  with  another  in  sight ;  that 
a  certain  fact  in  vision  will  have  a  certain  associated  meaning  in  touch. 
But  that  they  should  be  identical  is  to  admit  the  presentation  of  the 
same  datum  in  both  senses,  even  though  there  are  accompanying  dif- 
ferences that  make  it  difficult  to  discover  the  common  qualities.  But 
it  was  the  object  of  Berkeley's  doctrine  to  deny  this  identity  and  con- 
sequently to  deny  the  nativity  of  space  in  vision,  but  also  to  deny  the 
view  that  a  quale  could  be  "  perceived  "  which  was  not  in  the  "  im- 
pression." The  consequence  of  this  to  the  theory  of  idealism  ought  to 
be  apparent.  But  this  is  a  matter  to  be  examined  again.  Attention  is 
called  to  it  only  to  remark  the  meaning  that  must  be  attached  to  the 
term  "  perception  "  when  we  suppose  that  the  process  transcends  the 
state  of  consciousness  which  it  names. 

Now  whatever  we  may  think  of  Kant's  doctrine  of  space  and  its 
M  perception"  it  is  certain  that  he  cleared  up  a  great  deal  of  confusion 
by  asserting  the  ideality  of  it,  though  he  created  as  much  confusion  in 
another  direction  as  he  removed  in  this.  His  general  view  that  space 
was  subjective  and  ideal  as  well  as  a  priori  was  the  most  radical  limita- 
tion of  "  perception"  to  what  was  either  *'  in"  the  "  impression"  or 
"  in"  the  mind  that  had  been  made.  He  put  forward  no  paradoxes 
like  Berkeley  to  prove  his  theory.  He  simply  asserted  its  ideality  and 
allowed  the  logical  trend  of  philosophy  to  accept  it  without  specific  or 
experimental  proof  and  it  cut  up  by  the  roots  all  motive  for  any  other 
"  perception  "  of  space  than  such  as  can  be  affirmed  of  any  other  quality 
of  experience.  Nothing  could  be  seen  which  was  not  presented  or 
represented  in  the  sensory  "  impression"  or  in  the  act  of  consciousness. 
The  nature  of  things  was  "  unknown." 

This  consequence,  however,  was  due  less  to  any  appeal  to  facts  or 
arguments  by  Kant  that  clearly  proved  the  subjectivity  and  ideality  of 
space,  as  his  theory  is  supposed  to  conceive  it,  than  to  general  tenden- 
cies. It  was  the  logical  necessity  of  treating  all  "  perception  "  in  the 
same  way  that  brought  about  the  general  manner  of  regarding  the 
subject  among  idealists.  But  the  student  cannot  read  Kant  very  far 
without  raising  the  question  whether  Kant  had  any  clear  idea  of  his 
own  doctrine  or  knew  the  influences  and  assumptions  that  led  him  to 


272  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

it.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  thought  he  had  a  perfectly  clear  idea  of 
the  case,  but  when  one  has  tried  to  penetrate  the  wilderness  of  concep- 
tions by  which  Kant  tried  to  explain  what  he  meant,  he  must  be  con- 
fronted with  the  suspicion  that,  in  spite  of  certain  uniformities  of  ex- 
pression on  the  issue,  we  are  dealing  with  a  mind  that  has  no  concep- 
tion of  clear  and  consistent  thinking.  Vaihinger's  Kommentar  shows 
what  a  thicket  we  are  in  when  we  undertake  to  say  what  Kant  thought 
of  space,  or  any  other  subject  on  which  he  spoke,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
differences  of  opinion  among  students  of  the  system.  It  is  complicated 
with  his  ideas  of  Empfindung,  Anschauung,  Wahrnehmung,  Vorstel- 
lung,  Erscheinung,  Dinge  an  sich,  A  priori,  Form,  Substance, 
Eigenschaft,  Beschaffenheit,  Wirklichkeit,  Realitat,  Erfahrung,  Empi- 
risch,  Begriff,  Transcendental,  and  perhaps  a  dozen  other  terms  and 
conceptions.  Any  attempt  to  explain  his  doctrine  must  reckon  with 
all  these  and  one  has  not  to  proceed  far  before  discovering  that  he  has 
a  volume  on  hand  to  escape  the  denial  that  he  understands  Kant.  Then 
he  has,  in  addition  to  the  general  confusion  of  these  terms,  to  consider 
that  at  almost  every  step  the  content  of  those  terms  is  not  what  it  must 
be  in  order  to  make  the  issue  what  it  is  supposed  to  be.  That  is,  we 
are  generally  made  to  believe  that  Kant  is  discussing  the  problems  of 
Hume,  of  scholastic  philosophy,  of  idealism  and  realism,  of  material- 
ism versus  idealism,  etc.  But  presently  we  discover  that  he  is  using 
many  of  his  terms  in  wholly  new  senses  which  represent  only  a  con- 
venient way  of  running  away  from  the  issue  while  he  makes  his  an- 
tagonist believe  that  he  is  still  there  fighting.  An  old  proverb  ex- 
presses the  situation  under  another  analogy.  Kant  is  constantly  put- 
ting new  wine  into  old  bottles,  and  as  a  result  they  either  burst  or  we 
find  that  the  wine  is  not  what  we  contracted  for.  In  such  a  predica- 
ment the  discussion  of  Kant's  doctrine  must  impose  heavy  obligations, 
if  it  is  to  stand  criticism.  But  if  we  cannot  be  certain  what  Kant's 
doctrine  is,  we  may  discuss  his  more  fundamental  propositions  in  a 
way  either  to  show  what  that  doctrine  ought  to  have  been  in  the  con- 
ceptions of  his  day  and  in  the  light  of  the  philosophies  which  influ- 
enced his  mind,  or  to  suggest  some  considerations  which  may  have 
influenced  Kant  in  both  his  terminology  and  the  asserted  ideality  of 
space.  Possibly  it  would  be  well  to  do  both  of  these  and  I  shall  enter 
at  some  length  into  the  examination  of  his  views.  I  shall  not  pretend 
to  give  a  complete  conception  of  him  nor  insist  that  my  suggestions  are 
superficially  deducible  from  Kant's  language  alone  in  its  isolated  or 
merely  traditional  import,  but  I  wish  in  some  way  to  see  if  we  can 
arrive  by  criticism  at  ideas  that  may  show  a  larger  possible  consist- 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  273 


ency  with  actual  human  thinking  than  is  apparent  at  first.  I  say, 
"  process  of  criticism  "  because  I  mean  to  test  important  conceptions 
in  his  system.  I  shall  start  with  the  most  essential  proposition  in  his 
theory. 

I  pass  by,  for  the  present  at  least,  his  reference  to  the  a  priori  nature 
of  space  "perception"  and  his  description  of  it  as  a  "  form  of  intui- 
tion "  (Form  der  Anschauung),  and  take  his  more  fundamental  concep- 
tion of  it  as  "  subjective."  This  conception  of  it  is  added  at  times  to 
that  of  a  "  form  of  intuition,"  though  it  is  often  manifest  that  Kant  in- 
tends that  the  two  phrases  shall  be  identical  in  their  import.  But  I 
wish  for  the  present  to  confine  attention  rather  to  the  nature  of  space 
as  really  or  apparently  conceived  by  Kant  than  to  enter  into  discussion 
of  what  he  meant  by  "intuition"  and  "form"  as  a  precondition  of 
understanding  him,  however  important  they  may  be  in  the  final  account 
of  his  theory. 

Now  what  does  Kant  mean  by  calling  space  "  subjective  "  ?  Many 
of  us  from  time  immemorial  have  meant,  when  calling  a  thing  subjec- 
tive, that  it  is  not  objective,  that  it  is  a  purely  mental  product.  But 
Kant  calls  space  both !  This  is  unquestionably  his  position  in  the 
./Esthetic,  though  he  seems  in  the  Analytic  to  think  of  it  only  as 
"  subjective."  But  when  he  calls  it  both,  he  certainly  does  not  mean  to 
accept  the  antithesis  that  these  terms  have  in  the  minds  of  the  realists 
generally,  namely,  the  distinction  between  the  external  and  internal, 
or  between  the  real  and  ideal,  as  that  had  ordinarily  been  conceived, 
though  there  is  real  or  apparent  evidence  that  he  was  not  wholly  con- 
sistent on  this  point.  But  for  the  time  he  did  not  mean  to  discuss  the 
problems  in  which  this  antithesis  originated. 

But  then  if  Kant  did  not  mean  what  is  superficially  suggested  by 
his  language,  did  he  mean  by  it  the  Protagorean  relativity?  This  was 
simply  that  it  was  not  "  universal,"  or  that  at  least  we  had  no  evidence 
that  it  was  "  universal."  But  we  know  that  Kant  was  explicit  on  this 
point  and  said  definitely  that  all  men  had  this  "percept."  It  is  inter- 
esting, however,  to  remark  two  passages  in  which  Kant  indicates  very 
clearly  that  his  doctrine  has  to  face  the  suggestion  that  it  implies  this  rel- 
ativity. He  alludes  to  the  fact  that  we  can  speak  of  space  only  "  from 
the  standpoint  of  man,"  and  that  we  cannot  decide  whether  other  think- 
ing beings  have  it  or  not.  What  he  meant  or  supposed  by  "other 
thinking  beings"  we  are  not  told.  But  if  "other  thinking  beings" 
might  not  have  it,  how  does  Kant  know  that  all  men  have  it,  after 
calling  it ' '  subjective  "  ?  Have  we  the  influence  of  Swedenborg  here  ? 
Taking  this  term  in  its  sense  of  being  peculiar  to  the  mind  and  not  char- 


274  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

acteristic  of  external  objects  in  the  conception  of  "common  sense"  he 
creates  a  position  in  which  he  has  no  evidence  but  dogmatism  for  his 
contention,  and  it  is  certain  that  Kant  simply  assumes  the  fact  and 
offers  no  evidence  whatever  that  space  "  perception"  does  characterize 
all  men.  But  whether  consistent  or  not  in  this  respect  it  is  apparent 
that  Kant  intends  to  apply  the  term  "  subjective"  consistently  with  the 
conception  of  "  universality,"  in  man  at  least,  and  so  indicates  that  he 
has  not  in  mind  the  doctrine  of  relativity,  as  was  so  natural  to  suppose 
from  the  description  of  space  as  "subjective."  But  we  have  still  to 
ask  what  he  does  mean,  if  he  does  not  intend  relativity  by  it. 

Now  again  we  have  been  accustomed  to  use  the  term  "  subjective  " 
to  imply  illusion  or  hallucination,  or  when  not  exactly  these,  the  limita- 
tion of  the  fact  to  the  subject  as  an  event,  whatever  further  reference  or 
implication  it  may  have.  We  describe  illusions  and  hallucinations  as 
"  subjective"  on  the  ground  that  they  are  mental  states  only,  with  no 
objective  reality  involved  and  yet  corresponding  to  the  natural  or  normal 
meaning  of  such  experiences  in  response  to  the  proper  stimulus.  They 
have  no  correlate  which  we  call  reality  in  the  usual  representative  in- 
terpretation of  it,  though  the  person  experiencing  them  actually  mis- 
takes the  experience  for  one  implying  a  definite  reality.  That  is  to 
say,  we  assume  that  an  illusion  or  hallucination  is  "subjective"  and 
mean  to  indicate  that  the  terms  are  more  or  less  convertible.  Kant 
was  evidently  aware  of  this  connotation,  since  he  definitely  protects 
himself  against  the  implication,  and  says  that,  while  space  is  "  subjec- 
tive," it  is  not  "  Schein"  or  illusion.  This  is  a  purely  negative  de- 
scription of  it  and  the  further  question  is  whether  he  intends  to  describe 
it  positively  as  real.  In  regard  to  ti?ne  he  explicitly  affirms  its  reality, 
whatever  he  may  mean  by  his  assertion.  Of  this,  in  answer  to  the 
criticism  that  his  doctrine  denies  the  character  of  time  as  understood 
by  "common  sense,"  that  is,  its  objective  reality,  he  says  that  it  is  to 
be  considered  "  not  as  an  object,  but  as  a  mode  of  conception  or  pres- 
entation of  the  subject "  (nicht  als  Object,  sondern  als  Vorstellungsart 
meiner  selbst),  and  as  having  "subjective  reality  in  respect  of  inner 
experience  "  (subjective  Realitiit  in  Ansehung  der  inneren  Erfahrung). 
In  these  statements  and  the  whole  passage  from  which  they  are  taken, 
Kant  unmistakably  shows  that  he  intends  to  apply  the  predicate  "  re- 
ality "  to  time,  in  some  sense,  and  on  the  next  page  of  the  Critique  he 
makes  it  equally  clear  that  he  intends  the  same  conception  to  be  applied 
to  space.  It  is  apparent  on  examination,  however,  that  he  pilfers  an- 
other meaning  into  the  case  than  the  one  which  his  antagonist  assumes 
and  with  which  the  latter  creates  his  objection.    Kant  gives  it ' '  empirical 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  275 

reality,"  and  not  "transcendental"  in  any  objective  sense.  That  is, 
he  refuses  it  the  objectivity  which  his  critic  may  mean  by  "reality" 
and  then  assumes  that  the  term  "reality"  means  /actuality  or  exis- 
tence as  opposed  to  non-existence  in  "  perception,"  in  order  to  affirm  it 
of  space  and  time.  This  is  a  subreption  of  another  meaning  and  an 
evasion  of  the  issue  which  is  a  vice  very  constant  with  Kant.  We  should 
perhaps  remember,  however,  that  Kant's  conception  of  "real"  was 
determined  by  his  relation  to  the  metaphysical  and  scholastic  "  realism  " 
against  which  he  was  directing  his  philosophy.  The  conception  of  that 
term  for  English  thought  has  been  determined  by  the  attempts  to  answer 
Berkeley  and  Hume  and  not  to  answer  the  scholastics,  or  Leibnitz  ian- 
ism,  or  Wolfianism.  English  "  realism  "  was  an  epistemological 
theory  :  continental  "  realism"  was  an  ontological  theory.  The  Eng- 
lish "real"  was  the  external:  the  continental  "real"  was  the  meta- 
physical and  supersensible.  Kant's  denial  of  the  "reality"  of  space 
and  time,  therefore,  was  not  the  denial  of  their  externality  as  facts  of 
nature,  but  the  denial  of  their  metaphysical  "reality"  as  "things  in 
themselves"  or  as  properties  of  "  things  in  themselves."  Their  "  em- 
pirical reality"  which  he  affirms  may,  therefore,  coincide  with  the 
English  conception  of  the  case.  It  is  certain  that  Kant  did  not  come 
to  the  problem  with  the  same  conception  of  it  that  the  critics  of  Berke- 
ley had,  but  was  affected  by  the  a  priori  metaphysics  of  the  scholastics 
and  Leibnitz,  and  had  them  to  refute.  This  indicates  that  he  was  not 
opposing  the  ordinary  realism  but  the  transcendentalism  of  scholastic 
philosophy. 

It  is  interesting  to  remark,  however,  statements  that  may  be  inter- 
preted as  contradicting  the  contention  which  I  have  just  explained  as 
implying  the  "  subjective"  ideality  of  space  as  against  ordinary  real- 
ism. They  occur  in  the  "transcendental  exposition  of  space."  Here 
while  he  contends  that  space  is  a  subjective  intuition  Kant  still  regards 
it  as  giving  external  (aiissere)  reality  in  some  sense  which  he  is  will- 
ing to  consider  as  an  "  object."  We  may  find  on  further  examination 
that  all  this  is  still  subject  to  the  modification  that  all  "  phenomena" 
(Erscheinungen)  are  or  have  only  "  empirical  reality,"  but  it  is  clear 
both  in  this  part  of  the  discussion  and  in  that  about  time,  where  he 
distinctly  calls  attention  to  the  difference  between  space  and  time  "  per- 
ception "  in  relation  to  the  theory  of  idealism,  that  he  means  to  assume 
a  meaning  for  space  more  consonant  with  the  doctrine  of  realism 
which  he  is  supposed  to  deny  than  perhaps  other  statements  would 
seem  to  indicate.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  ordinary  realism.  It  would 
usually  be  assumed  that  the  simultaneous  affirmation  of  subjective  in- 


276  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tuition  and  external  reality  for  space  was  a  contradiction,  but  there 
must  have  been  some  reason  for  it  in  Kant.  I  shall  return  to  this 
point  of  view  later  and  use  the  distinction  thus  implied  by  Kant  for  an 
important  purpose  which  I  cannot  explain  fully  at  present.  In  the 
meantime,  we  are  forced  to  recognize  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  this 
appearance  of  realism  in  the  system,  Kant's  further  statements  about 
space  in  connection  with  "  Erscheinung"  and  its  nature  indicate  that 
he  has  to  face  the  accusation  of  his  critic  that  "phenomena"  (Er- 
scheinungen)  are  illusions  (Scheine).  First  he  speaks  of  space  as  a 
"Form  aller  Erscheinungen  aiisserer  Sinne,"  and  also  as  "Form  der 
Anschauung"  in  which  there  can  be  no  distinction  between  "Er- 
scheinung "  and  "  Anschauung."  Then  again  he  speaks  of  the  "  Vor- 
stellung  des  Raumes "  after  we  are  supposed  to  have  distinguished 
between  "  Vorstellung "  and  "Anschauung"  on  the  ground  that 
"  Vorstellung "  may  be  convertible  with  "Empfindung"  and  "An- 
schauung "  as  not  so  convertible  with  it.  All  this  shows  confusion 
worse  confounded  in  the  system  on  the  ordinary  interpretation  of 
language.  But  assuming  that  it  can  be  elucidated  by  some  logical 
hocus  pocus  we  can  return  to  the  critical  issue  imposed  upon  him  by 
his  own  anticipation  of  the  objection  that  "  Erscheinungen"  as  well  as 
space  and  time  are  illusions. 

Now  Kant's  answer  to  this  objection  is  the  same  as  that  given  in 
the  reply  to  the  criticism  of  his  idea  of  time.  He  denies  that  "Er- 
scheinungen "  imply  illusion  (Schein)  by  the  same  subreption  as  that 
which  we  have  remarked  in  the  case  of  time,  though  the  mere  fact 
that  he  anticipates  this  interpretation  of  "  Erscheinung"  shows  that  its 
meaning  lies  close  to  that  of  illusion.  Kant's  reply  simply  substitutes 
/actuality  for  objectivity  as  the  meaning  of  reality,  and  thinks  that 
he  has  answered  his  critic's  objection.  He  identifies  sensory  impres- 
sion with  "phenomena"  and  calls  these  "  Veriinderungen  unseres 
Subjects,"  qualifying  this  statement  very  carefully  by  the  term  "  bios," 
which,  if  it  has  any  significance  at  all,  positively  emphasizes  what  the 
naked  expression  clearly  implies,  namely,  the  exclusion  of  objectivity 
or  external  reality  from  them.  Thus  he  has  to  speak  of  "Erschein- 
ungen" as  "  subjective"  also  and  at  the  same  time  he  definitely  indi- 
cates that  the  "  Empfindungen,"  which  are  also  treated  as  "  Erschein- 
ungen," that  is,  as  relative  in  the  Protagorean  sense,  though  this  in 
connection  with  the  denial  of  the  relativity  of  space  which  shows  a 
conceptual  lineage  with  "  Erscheinung,"  as  its  "  Form"  involves  some 
confusion.  But  passing  this  aside,  let  us  confine  ourselves  to  his  atti- 
tude toward  sensation  and  phenomena  which  he  does  not  wish  to  regard 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  277 

as  illusions.  The  very  necessity  of  discussing  this  question  shows  that 
Kant  was  aware  of  the  point  of  view  from  which  he  expected  to  be 
criticized  and  hence  a  realization  of  the  nature  of  the  objection.  Hence 
the  only  matter  that  remains  is  the  query  whether  he  fairly  answered 
the  objection.  That  he  simply  distorted  the  meaning  of  "  reality"  to 
suit  the  necessity  of  an  affirmative  proposition  where  he  ought  to  have 
had  a  negative,  proves  that  he  did  not  face  the  issue  squarely.  He 
used  it  in  neither  the  epistemological  nor  the  ontological  sense  of 
scholastic  metaphysics,  but  only  in  the  sense  in  which  any  fact  is 
"real"  even  when  it  is  merely  a  subjective  state.  But  whether  he 
did  or  did  not  use  the  term  fairly,  it  is  apparent  that  Kant  wanted  to 
use  "  subjective"  in  a  sense  to  exclude  both  relativity  and  illusion. 

Let  us  look  at  another  set  of  facts  in  this  connection.  Philosophy 
had  previously  admitted  the  ideality  of  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter, 
and  had  only  questioned  that  of  the  primary  qualities.  Kant's  whole 
doctrine  denied,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  this  distinction  between  the  two 
classes  of  properties  and  idealized  both.  Berkeley  had  done  the  same. 
Kant  ought  to  have  seen  then  exactly  why  his  critic  objected  to  the 
"subjectivity"  of  space  and  not  to  have  quibbled  about  the  term 
"reality."  The  meaning  of  the  ideality  of  the  secondary  properties 
was  clearly  enough  recognized  as  indicating  their  non-externality  and 
non-reality  as  "known,"  so  that  the  idealization  of  the  primary  quali- 
ties ought  not  to  have  frightened  Kant  into  apologizing  for  the  conse- 
quences by  equivocating  with  the  term  "  reality."  However  that  may 
be,  we  must  notice  an  interesting  circumstance  in  the  development  of  his 
position.  In  the  first  edition  of  the  Kritik  he  said,  speaking  of  the 
space  "intuition,"  that  "this  subjective  condition  of  all  external 
phenomena  can  be  compared  with  no  other.  The  pleasant  taste  of  a 
wine  does  not  belong  to  the  objective  properties  of  the  wine,  that  is  of 
an  object  considered  as  a  phenomenon,  but  to  the  peculiar  activity  of 
the  subject  which  enjoys  it."  l  In  this  and  further  remarks  he  shows 
beyond  question  that  he  maintains  the  subjective  ideality  of  sensory 
states.  In  passing  the  student  should  note  the  peculiar  use  of  the  term 
"  phenomenon  "  (Erscheinung)  in  this  quotation.  But  the  important 
thing  to  be  observed  is  the  omission  of  this  passage  from  later  editions 
of  the  Kritik  and  the  substitution  of  a  passage  in  which  he  reaffirms 

1  Diese  subjective  Bedingung  aller  ausseren  Erscheinungen  mit  keiner  anderen 
kann  verglichen  werden.  Der  Wohlgeschmack  eines  Weines  gehort  nicht  zu 
den  objectivien  Bestimmungen  des  Weines,  mithin  eines  Objects  sogar  als 
Erscheinung  betrachtet,  sondern  zu  der  besonderen  Beschaffenheit  des  Sinnes 
an  dem  Subject  was  ihn  geniesst. 


27S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

this  subjectivity  but  denies  absolutely  the  ideality  of  "  phenomena," 
that  is,  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter.  This  is  a  strange  inversion 
of  the  previous  conceptions  of  objectivity  and  idealism.  Previously 
idealism  had  supposed  the  ideality  of  the  secondary  properties  and  the 
reality  of  the  primary,  space  and  time.  Here  in  this  substituted  pas- 
sage, Kant  seems  to  deny  the  ideality  of  the  secondary  qualities  and  to 
affirm  that  of  space.  In  the  "  Allgemeine  Anmerkungen,"  however, 
he  asserts  the  very  opposite  of  this  by  maintaining  the  "  ideality  of 
external  as  well  as  internal  sense  '  perceptions,'  and  consequently  of  all 
objects  of  sense "  (Idealitat  des  ausseren  sowohl  als  inneren  Sinnes, 
mithin  aller  Objecte  der  Sinne ") .  In  all  this  we  have  apparent  a 
perfect  mesh  of  equivocations  and  contradictions  that  make  it  impos- 
sible to  determine  exactly  from  Kant's  usage  what  he  means  by  "  sub- 
jective" unless  we  analyze  the  problem  in  a  way  to  show  that  he  was 
not  respecting  the  traditional  import  of  the  term.  This  will  be  found 
in  the  end,  I  think,  to  be  the  fact. 

In  the  usual  parlance  of  philosophy  we  have  had  a  number  of  antith- 
eses whose  meaning  has  been  tolerably  clear  to  most  men,  each  term 
of  the  antithesis  helping  to  indicate  the  import  of  the  other.  They  are 
"  external  and  internal,"  "  subjective  and  objective,"  "  universal  and 
particular,"  "  ideal  and  real."  It  has  been  intended  by  philosophers, 
most  of  them  at  least,  that  these  antitheses  should  be  convertible  with 
each  other,  that  is,  that  the  distinction  between  the  "  external  and 
internal "  should  mean  the  same  as  that  between  "  objective  and  sub- 
jective," etc.  But  this  is  not  always  the  case.  They  might  partly  or 
even  wholly  coincide,  that  is,  what  is  said  to  be  "universal"  might 
also  be  found  to  be  "  objective,"  and  the  "  particular  "  might  be  found 
where  the  "  subjective"  was  found,  but  the  coincidence  would  not  be 
evidence  of  identity ;  and  so  on  with  the  several  antitheses  throughout. 
If  in  any  case  they  are  supposed  to  be  convertible  or  identical  the  fact 
requires  proof  and  should  not  be  assumed.  Now  Kant  often  regards 
some  of  them  at  least  as  identical  and  simply  assumes  that  coincidence 
proves  identity.  For  instance,  he  makes  ' '  universality  "  convertible 
with  "objectivity."  He  may  be  right  as  a  matter  of  fact,  but  they 
will  hardly  be  the  one  or  the  other  for  the  same  reasons,  while  their 
identification  more  or  less  violates  the  historical  usage  that  gave  the 
terms  a  different  import.  But  in  spite  of  this  and  the  accepted  antith- 
esis between  some  of  the  terms  in  traditional  usage,  Kant,  as  I  have 
indicated  above,  actually  regards  "subjective"  and  "objective"  as 
coincident  in  the  same  fact,  namely,  that  of  space,  and  thus  assumes 
that  the  antithesis  does  not  hold  good.      If  objections  to  a  doctrine  are 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  279 

to  be  met  by  adopting  contradictory  statements  as  describing  his  posi- 
tion one  can  refute  anything !  No  wonder  Hegel  could  talk  with 
impunity  about  the  unity  of  contradictories.  If  you  simply  steal  a  new 
meaning  into  the  terms  of  your  critic  and  surreptitiously  eliminate  the 
conceptions  which  determine  the  real  problem  and  the  basis  of  contro- 
versy, you  can  answer  any  difficulty.  This  was  Kant's  policy  through- 
out and  one  is  tempted  to  insist  that  he  ought  to  have  been  hanged. 
He  was  never  prepared  to  accept  the  logical  consequences  of  his  real 
or  apparent  position,  nor  to  give  a  clear  square  answer  to  critics.  He 
wanted  to  say  that  space  was  "  subjective"  and  yet  to  deny  solipsism. 
He  wanted  to  idealize  space  as  well  as  the  secondary  qualities  of  mat- 
ter, and  yet  to  believe  in  an  external  reality  not  admitted  of  the  second- 
ary qualities  mentioned,  and  then  to  keep  possession  of  the  antithesis 
asserted  that  the  properties  of  matter  had  "absolutely  no  ideality." 
Philosophically  he  was  trying  to  adopt  the  language  of  both  idealism 
and  realism  without  resorting  to  so  complete  an  analysis  of  the  case  as 
both  his  agreement  and  difference  with  the  two  theories  required.  He 
felt  the  force  of  the  antithesis  between  them  as  historical  doctrines,  but 
he  did  not  know  how  to  remove  it  when  supposing  that  there  was  both 
a  truth  and  an  error  in  the  way  of  stating  the  actual  nature  of  "  knowl- 
edge." How  then  can  we  bring  out  what  Kant  is  supposed  to  have 
intended  ?  Can  we  find  the  desired  unity  in  his  conceptions,  and  if  so, 
how  can  this  be  affected  ? 

In  answer  to  this  question,  I  shall  take  the  two  positions  assumed 
by  Kant  and  which  are  so  often  treated  as  contradictory,  and  analyze 
them  as  they  require.  Formally  and  in  terms  of  the  historical  and  tradi- 
tional use  of  the  terms  they  are  contradictory.  But  can  we  give  an 
analysis  of  the  problem  that  will  elicit  conceptions  at  which  Kant  may 
have  aimed  when  he  did  not  clearly  remove  the  antithesis  mentioned  ? 
This  I  mean  to  try  and  hence  the  two  conceptions  with  which  I  start 
are  the  subjectivity  and  externality  of  space.  Whether  we  should 
choose  these  alternatives  as  necessarily  opposed  to  each  other,  I  shall 
not  decide,  for  the  present  at  least.  I  shall  simply  recognize  the  fact 
that  Kant  insisted  upon  affirming  both.  His  relation  to  the  two  and 
different  types  of  realism  may  be  the  clue  to  his  confusion,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  having  briefly  alluded  to  it  above  and  indicated  that  the  best 
way  to  approach  him  was  with  the  assumption  that  the  difficulties  of 
the  system  arise  from  the  conflict  of  his  language  with  epistemological 
realism  and  not  with  the  ontological,  But  that  he  insisted  on  the  sub- 
jective, a  priori,  and  ideal  nature  of  the  space  is  not  doubted  by  any 
one,  but  many  insist  that  he  either  had   no  right  to  admit  any  affilia- 


2bO  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tion  with  realism  in  asserting  an  external  world,  or  that  his  meaning 
is  not  what  appears  on  the  surface.  That  he  insisted  on  an  external 
reality  in  some  sense  is  apparent  in  several  contentions.  First,  he 
constantly  uses  the  expression  that  the  a  priori  subjective  nature  of 
space  is  necessary  for  the  very  purpose  of  conditioning  the  "knowl- 
edge "  of  an  external  world  of  sense.  This  frequent  mode  of  expression 
will  be  found  in  the  sequel  to  be  of  great  significance.  Secondly,  he 
uses  the  term  "  outer"  (ausser)  without  any  qualification,  which  would 
suggest  that  he  intended  it  in  the  purely  objective  sense.  Thirdly, 
he  distinctly  asserts  in  the  "Refutation  of  Idealism"  (Widerlegung 
des  Idealismus)  that  the  "  consciousness  of  our  own  existence  proves 
the  existence  of  an  external  world"  (Das  Bewusstein  meines  eigenen 
Daseins  bevveiset  das  Dasein  der  Gegenstiinde  im  Raum  ausser  mir). 
We  may  say  all  we  please  against  the  real  or  supposed  inconsistency 
of  Kant's  attack  upon  idealism.  That  is  indifferent  to  the  question  to 
be  discussed  here.  I  am  dealing  first  with  the  system  as  it  is,  and 
hence  am  asking  whether  there  may  not  be  an  interpretation  which 
may  show  that  Kant  was  fundamentally,  and  in  spite  of  appearances  to 
the  contrary,  more  consistent  than  is  supposed.  He  himself  evidently 
thought  he  was  consistent  and  must  be  examined  first  on  that  assump- 
tion. That  is,  we  must  try  to  explain  why  he  took  this  position  and 
why  he  thought  he  was  justified  in  denying  the  idealism  (material) 
which  he  attacked.  Hence  I  repeat  the  Kantian  assumptions  with 
which  I  wish  to  initiate  an  examination,  namely,  the  subjective  nature 
of  space  and  the  existence  of  an  external  world  which  that  subjective 
space  would  seem  to  contradict. 

Opposition  to  solipsism  always  commits  a  man  to  some  form  of 
realism,  as  we  have  found  in  earlier  discussions,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  the  subject's  own  states  are  not  the  only  facts  accepted  in 
"knowledge."  The  idealist  admits  other  conscious  subjects  besides 
himself,  which  he  could  not  admit  if  his  "knowledge"  were  strictly 
limited  to  his  own  states.  Idealism,  therefore,  has  to  make  its  peace 
with  solipsism  and  the  proposition  that  there  are  other  conscious  sub- 
jects is  its  treaty.  There  are  two  types  of  realism,  the  naive  of  "  com- 
mon sense"  and  the  hypothetical  of  philosophy.  Idealism  may  con- 
trovert the  former  but  be  identical  with  the  latter.  Naive  realism 
assumes  that  the  state  of  "knowledge"  represents  the  nature  of  the 
object  as  it  is  seen,  and  so  supposes  more  or  less  resemblance  between 
"  knowledge  "  and  reality.  Hypothetical  realism  assumes  more  or  less 
of  a  difference  or  antithesis  between  the  mental  act  and  the  object  be- 
lieved to  exist.     Hence  the  only  realism  which  the  idealist  can  oppose 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  2b I 

is  that  which  interprets  external  reality  by  the  principle  of  identity, 
not  between  the  act  of  "knowing"  and  the  thing  "known,"  but  be- 
tween the  presentation  and  the  object ;  that  is,  the  realism  which  takes 
the  qualities  of  reality  to  be  exactly  as  they  appear.  Whatever  distinct 
names  we  give  to  the  two  types  of  realism,  it  was  the  latter  type  that 
Kant's  position  would  dispute,  though  I  rather  think  that  he  did  not 
have  this  alone  in  mind,  but  mainly  the  metaphysical  realism  of  the 
scholastics,  as  perhaps  most  persons  will  recognize,  and  I  state  the 
fact  here  only  to  make  clear  the  point  de  repere  from  which  to  view 
his  doctrine.  This  is  made  apparent  by  Kant's  accusation  against  the 
common  mind  (empirischer  Verstand)  that  it  takes  sensory  data  for 
"  things  in  themselves  "  (Dinge  an  sich)  .  Assuming,  then,  that  Kant 
was  denying  what  I  shall  call  presentative  realism,  as  well  as  the 
scholastic  type,  and  intending  to  admit  a  form  implied  by  the  denial  of 
•solipsism,  which  all  idealists  of  the  Kantian  type  deny,  I  have  a  posi- 
tion which  indicates  one  characteristic  of  consistency  in  the  assertion 
of  subjectivity  for  space  and  the  existence  of  external  reality.  But 
Kant,  at  least,  apparently  intends  to  go  farther.  He  does  not  wish  to 
agree  with  the  ordinary  realistic  conception  of  space  as  taken  from 
Cartesianism  and  assumed  to  be  primary  and  real  in  the  presentative 
sense  while  it  was  considered  as  the  essential  property  of  matter. 
Hence  he  introduced  a  complication  into  the  problem  which  philosophy 
previously  was  not  prepared  to  discuss  with  its  accepted  terminology. 
If  he  had  said  that  he  intended  to  conceive  space  in  the  same  way  that 
we  relate  color  to  external  objects,  and  thus  suppose  that  there  was 
the  same  kind  of  antithesis  or  difference  between  space  as  an  intuition 
(Anschauung)  and  that  which  is  supposed  to  condition  the  very  exist- 
ence of  reality,  as  that  between  color  as  a  physical  attribute  and  color 
as  a  psychical  function,  he  would  have  had  a  clear  position,  whether 
true  or  not.  He  would  have  stated  his  intention  definitely.  But  it  is 
apparent  that  he  has  not  done  so,  and  perhaps  many  or  most  persons 
would  contend  that  it  would  have  been  absurd  to  do  it.  Certainly  he 
uses  language  whose  easiest  interpretation  seems  to  imply  the  total 
subjectivity  of  space  in  the  solipsistic  sense  minus  its  relativity.  He 
speaks  indifferently  of  the  subjectivity  of  space  and  of  its  "  intuition,'' 
and  even  indicates  that  they  are  identical.  This  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate with  absolute  clearness  the  denial  of  any  and  all  objectivity  to 
what  is  called  space,  or  the  supposed  space  of  the  realist.  But  here 
is  a  very  significant  form  of  expression  by  Kant,  and  frequently  given 
by  him  in  places  where  he  evidently  intends  it  to  be  fundamental  to  his 
doctrine,  that  this  "  subjective  intuition  "  conditioned  the  very  exist- 


2S3  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

enceof  external  '*  perception,"  or  the  "  perception  "  of  external  reality, 
a  statement  which  he  could  not  have  made  if  he  had  intended  to  deny 
all  objective  import  to  the  idea  of  space,  since  he  thus  definitely  relates 
it  to  a  reality  inconsistent  with  solipsism.  We  have  in  this,  perhaps, 
an  explanation  of  Kant's  conception  of  the  simultaneously  "  subjec- 
tive" and  "objective"  nature  of  space  without  interpreting  "objec- 
tive" as  synonymous  with  "universality."  That  is,  suppose  that 
Kant  meant  to  assert  the  purely  subjective  genesis  of  space  "percep- 
tion "  as  a  function  qualitatively  determined,  with  an  objective  impli- 
cation or  even  "perceptive"  datum,  whether  the  realism  be  presenta- 
tive  or  non-presentative,  and  thus  distinguish  it  from  the  objective 
genesis  and  implications  of  sensation,  whether  presentative  or  not, 
though  Kant  would  say  that  sensation  was  non-presentative  of  objec- 
tive reality  in  spite  of  its  objective  origin.  If  this  is  Kant's  conception, 
we  must  remember,  however,  that  epistemologically  he  did  not  intend 
to  assume  or  deny  any  identity,  that  is  presentative  character,  between 
space  as  intuited  and  space  as  a  supposed  objective  reality  and  as  con- 
ceived by  the  realists  whom  he  actually  agreed  with,  but  only  as  con- 
ceived by  the  realists  whom  he  was  refuting.  Now  is  there  any  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  any  such  interpretation  is  possible  or  rational  ? 

If  the  view  indicated  be  possible  we  must  remember  the  following 
facts  :  (i)  the  objective  origin  of  sensation;  (2)  the  objective 
meaning  of  sensation;  (3)  the  subjective  nature  of  sensation;  (4) 
the  non-presentative  nature  of  external  reality.  This  indicates 
Kant's  conception  of  the  external  world  of  matter  and  the  way  in 
which  we  "know"  it.  The  conception  of  space  which  I  conjecture 
for  examination,  possibly  Kantian,  may  be  represented  in  a  parallel 
form  with  that  of  sensation.  (1)  The  subjective  origin  of  space 
"perception";  (2)  the  objective  meaning  of  space  "  perception  " ; 
(3)  the  indeterminate  question  whether  it  is  presentative  or  non- 
presentative  of  its  objective  reference. 

Kantians  will  admit  the  first  of  these  conceptions,  but  deny  the 
second  in  any  other  sense  than  an  application  to  phenomena.  That  is, 
they  will  say  that  Kant  did  not  admit  any  other  objectivity  for  space 
than  a  reference  to  "  phenomena"  and  its  universality  inhuman  "  per- 
ception," not  its  externality.  He  specifically  describes  it  (  1)  positively 
as  the  "form  of  phenomena"  (Form  der  Erscheinungen),  and  (2) 
negatively,  as  not  a  property  of  "things  in  themselves"  (Dinge  an 
sich).  This  would  seem  to  mean  that  its  "  objectivity "  could  not 
mean  externality,  unless  "phenomena"  (Erscheinungen)  could  be 
treated  as  external.      That  is,  we  are  shifted   back  to  the  meaning  of 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  283 


"phenomenon"  for  a  solution  of  the  problem,  including  also  that  of 
"things  in  themselves."  But  I  shall  not  pursue  that  direction  in  the 
discussion  at  present.  After  thus  hinting  the  source  of  the  objection 
to  the  possibility  outlined  and  the  discussion  which  this  objection  sug- 
gests, I  shall  start  with  a  question  or  two  which  I  have  not  seen  dis- 
cussed in  the  attempts  to  solve  the  problem.  It  arises  in  connection 
with  the  statement  that  space  is  not  a  "  Begriff  "  because  it  is  infinite, 
and  that  it  is  not  a  property  of  "  things  in  themselves."  The  analysis 
of  both  with  their  implications  will  bring  out  the  conceptions  which 
may  have  influenced  Kant  in  his  doctrine,  whether  they  explain  it  or 
not. 

Now  what  is  the  implication  in  Kant's  proof  that  space  is  an 
"intuition"  (Anschauung)  and  not  a  "concept"  (Begriff)?  He 
assumes  in  his  argument  that  "  Begriff e,"  abstract  general  concepts, 
are  the  result  of  comparison  and  abstraction,  and  that  the  objects  in 
experience  from  which  they  are  formed  are  individual  objects  of  a  finite 
character.  That  is,  the  individual  objects  of  "  perception"  (Wahrneh- 
mung)  are  derived  from  the  finite  presentations  of  sense.  Now  if  the 
objects  of  sense  are  finite  and  if  space  is  infinite,  it  cannot  be  abstracted 
from  these  objects,  but  must  be  the  product  or  object  of  functions  not 
constituted  by  those  in  either  sensation  (Empfindung)  or  "empirical 
intuition"  (empirische  Anschauung).  The  function  has  to  be  a  dis- 
tinct one,  and  so  was  named  "pure  intuition"  (reine  Anschauung), 
whatever  that  may  mean.  But  it  is  certainly  supposed  to  give  what 
sensation  cannot  give.  All  that  abstraction  can  effect  is  the  deter- 
mination of  common  qualities  which  inhere  in  the  subjects  from  which 
they  are  drawn,  and  it  never  shows  that  the  quality  abstracted  exists 
outside  the  subjects  compared.  Space  being  infinite,  therefore,  cannot 
be  the  object  of  an  act  of  abstraction.  The  act  intuiting  it  must  be  of 
the  mind's  own  doing.  In  this  way  we  can  understand  why  Kant 
wishes  to  maintain  persistently  that  space  "perception"  is  purely  sub- 
jective. It  is  not  ' '  given "  in  sensation  and  not  derived  from  its 
objects  by  abstraction,  and  consequently  must  be  an  "  a  priori"  product 
of  the  mind,  if  "  product  "  is  the  right  word,  and  so  a  purely  subjective 
"creation"  superposed  upon  experience,  or  in  which  it  is  arranged. 
If  "creation"  or  "product"  wrongly  describe  the  real  process,  as  I 
think  they  do,  we  may  look  at  the  act  as  a  subjectively  originated  one 
in  respect  of  its  content,  but  nevertheless  "perceptive"  or  repre- 
sentative of  an  external  reality  without  assuming  that  it  is  causally 
instigated  by  space  as  an  object.  The  only  question  that  remains  is 
whether  this  view  of  the  case  has  adequate  grounds  for  its  assertion. 


284  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

This  query  must  be  answered  in  some  such  way  as  the  following. 
The  description  of  space  as  infinite  apparently  implies  that  it  is 
objective  in  the  realistic  sense  or  that  the  subject  itself  is  infinite.  If 
space  have  no  external  reality  whatsoever,  or  is  neither  a  property  nor 
a  relation  of  "things  in  themselves,"  but  a  subjective  "intuition,"  as 
Kant  asserts  over  and  over  again,  and  if  it  is  infinite  at  the  same  time, 
this  quality  must  be  attributed  to  the  subjective  act  of  the  mind.  That 
is,  all  the  infinity  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  ascribe  to  the 
external  space  of  realism  must  be  referred  to  the  mind  of  the  man  who 
has  it.  Now  if  a  Kantian  is  not  satisfied  with  this  reduction  of  the 
matter,  he  must  admit  that  space  is  objective,  as  not  contained  wholly 
in  the  subjective  act  which  intuits  it,  even  though  the  act  is  subjectively 
originated  and  not  the  result  of  spatial  stimulus.  Consequently,  it 
would  seem  that  whatever  subjectivity  we  mean  to  give  it,  this  must 
be  consistent  with  some  form  of  objectivity  implied  in  realism.  Can 
such  a  conception  be  made  consonant  with  Kant's  statements  elsewhere? 

The  answer  to  this  question  will  require  an  elaborate  statement  of 
the  ideas  by  which  Kant  was  influenced  both  consciously  and  uncon- 
sciously in  the  formation  of  his  conceptions  on  every  subject  in  his 
system.  This  statement  of  the  ideas  affecting  his  judgment  is  suggested 
by  the  constantly  repeated  observation  of  Kant  that  space  is  neither  a 
property  nor  a  relation  of  "  things  in  themselves ."  It  is  apparent 
in  it  that  Kant  had  in  mind  ideas  derived  from  Descartes  and  Leibnitz, 
and  that  he  was  denying  something  which  he  thought  had  been  affirmed. 

Now  let  me  first  remark  that  the  significance  of  Kant's  statement  will 
depend,  somewhat  at  least,  upon  whether  the  emphasis  in  the  proposi- 
tion, denying  that  space  is  a  property  of  "  things  in  themselves,"  is  placed 
upon  the  negative  particle  affecting  the  copula,  or  upon  the  predicate 
word  "property."  That  is,  we  may  have  two  judgments  in  this  form 
of  statement.  ( 1 )  "  Space  is  not  a  property  of  '  things  in  themselves,' " 
and  (2)  "  Space  is  not  a  property  of  '  things  in  themselves.' "  In  the 
first  of  these  propositions  we  deny  all  connection  between  space  and 
things.  In  the  second  we  admit  this  connection  but  deny  that  space  is 
a  "  property"  of  things  or  as  inhering  in  them.  That  is,  we  may  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  interpret  the  concept  "property"  as  imply- 
ing inhesion  and  so  determining  the  same  limitations  as  the  subject. 
That  is,  properties  of  a  subject  do  not  extend  their  existence  or  inhesion 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  subject  itself.  Now  Kant  over  and  over  again 
asserts  that  space  does  not  inhere  in  things  themselves.  This,  it  will 
be  noticed,  is  quite  consistent  with  his  statement  that  space  is  infinite 
and  his  adhesion  to  something  like  the  atomic  theory  of  matter.     The 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  285 


first  interpretation  of  the  proposition,  or  perhaps  better,  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  first  form  of  the  proposition  leads  to  the  Boscovitchian 
doctrine  of  points  of  force  as  constituting  the  nature  of  matter.  This 
means  that  matter  per  se  is  spaceless.  This  view  is  supposed  to  fol- 
low from  the  Leibnitzian  theory  of  monads.  Now  it  is  noticeable  that 
Kant  does  not  say  that  "things  in  themselves"  are  spaceless,  but  he 
does  say  that  space  is  not  a  "  property  "  of  them  and  leads  us  to  con- 
clude that  it  was  the  second  form  of  the  proposition  that  he  had  in 
mind.  This  we  shall  find  consistent  with  the  idea  that  matter  or 
reality  "occupies"  space,  while  Kant  means  to  deny  that  the  fact 
makes  it  a  "  property"  of  reality.  Now  let  us  examine  the  possible 
lineage  of  this  conception. 

As  we  know,  Descartes  held  the  following  views  :  (1)  that  space 
was  the  essential  property  of  matter ;  ( 2 )  that  matter  was  infinite 
and  filled  all  space;  (3)  that  space  was  a  primary  quality  of  mat- 
ter and  real  as  "  perceived."  Both  his  sensible  and  supersensible 
worlds  were  essentially  alike  in  their  nature.  But  he  seems  to  have 
regarded  space  at  the  same  time  as  not  dependent  on  matter  for  its 
existence,  though  considered  as  its  "  property."  At  any  rate,  the  con- 
tention that  matter  was  infinite  made  it  impossible  to  prove  that  space 
was  not  a  "  property  "  of  it  in  the  same  sense  as  all  its  other  inhering 
properties.  Spinoza  simplified  things  by  making  space  an  attribute 
of  matter  precisely  like  all  other  properties  as  Descartes  conceived 
them.  Extension  and  thought,  as  we  know,  were  the  two  essential  attri- 
butes of  substance  or  God,  and  all  others  were  modes,  but  all  of  them 
inhered  in  the  Absolute.  This  position  made  substance,  matter  or  God, 
at  least  the  logical  prius  of  these  attributes,  and  so  conditioned  their 
existence  on  the  Absolute  instead  of  regarding  space  as  in  any  way  con- 
ditioning the  existence  of  matter,  substance  or  the  Absolute.  Spinoza 
insisted  absolutely  on  monism.  He  could  not  tolerate  two  simultaneous 
absolutes,  even  if  one  of  them  was  space  and  the  other  substance. 
Hence  we"  must  subordinate  the  existence  of  space  to  this  substance 
and  reverse  the  ordinary  assumptions  about  it  which  made  it  necessary 
to  the  existence  of  substance,  though  not  its  creator.  His  position 
was  the  logical  consequence  of  the  Cartesian  doctrine  in  its  essential 
character,  and  perhaps  led  to  the  idea,  held  also  by  previous  scholastic 
philosophers,  that  the  Absolute  was  above  space  and  time,  and  per- 
haps could  be  described  as  spaceless,  though  there  was  nothing  in  this 
conception  to  prevent  the  philosopher  from  holding  that  reality,  the 
absolute,  had  extension  as  a  property  of  it  and  conditioned  its  existence 
as  it  did  all   properties,  a  view  the  reverse  of  that  which  commonly 


286  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

conditioned  substance  by  space,  though  not  thinking  of   it  as  a  causal 
condition. 

Now  Leibnitz  could  not  submit  to  the  monistic  materialism  of 
Spinoza  nor  to  the  atomistic  materialism  of  the  physicists,  and  hence 
he  proceeds  to  the  construction  of  his  monadistic  doctrine  which  is  a 
singular  cross  between  Spinozism  and  Atomism.  His  primary  notion 
was  that  of  substance,  but  he  could  not  endure  the  monistic  pantheism 
of  the  one  school  or  the  pluralistic  materialism  of  the  other,  and  hence 
he  sought  to  evade  both  extremes  by  his  peculiar  monadism,  the  details 
of  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  examine  here.  What  interests  us  is  his 
theory  of  space.  Leibnitz  anticipated  Kant  in  the  statement  that  space 
was  not  a  "  property "  of  matter,  but  he  called  it  a  "  relation  "  of  it. 
It  appears,  however,  that  Leibnitz  distinguished  between  "extension" 
and  "  space."  He  regarded  "  extension  "  as  a  property  of  matter,  the 
amount  of  "space"  which  it  occupied  and  which  was  always  the 
same  and  represented  its  limits.  In  this  conception  which  is  the  same 
as  that  in  modern  physical  dynamics,  substance  is  the  prius  of  "  ex- 
tension," precisely  as  it  was  in  the  philosophy  of  Spinoza.  On  the 
question  of  "  space"  Leibnitz  was  not  perfectly  clear,  though  he  was 
most  uniform  in  his  statement  that  it  was  a  "  relation."  At  times  he 
seems  to  have  regarded  it  as  subjective  in  the  Kantian  sense,  as  he 
certainly  so  conceived  time.  At  others  he  thinks  of  it  as  "real" 
though  he  is  careful  to  deny  that  it  is  either  substance  or  accident. 
This  is  a  most  important  consideration  in  determining  what  he  meant 
by  calling  it  a  "relation"  and  also  in  estimating  the  intellectual  in- 
fluences affecting  the  conceptions  of  Kant,  since  it  shows  what  both 
men  had  to  controvert  in  the  effort  to  affirm  something  of  space. 
What  Leibnitz  was  clear  on  was  the  statement  that  "  space  "  was  not 
a  "  property"  of  the  monads  and  that  it  was  neither  a  substance  nor 
an  accident  of  anything  else  than  matter.  When  he  came  to  say  what 
it  was  he  could  only  call  it  a  "  relation."  Now,  though  it  is  possible 
that  he  meant  by  his  view  to  assert  in  a  new  form,  less  equivocal  as  he 
may  have  supposed  than  the  idea  of  "  condition,"  the  old  doctrine  that 
space  was  a  condition  of  the  existence  of  matter  and  to  limit  the  idea 
of  "property "to  inhesion  and  the  limitations  of  matter  as  regards 
space,  nevertheless  the  tendency  of  his  mode  of  expression,  as  perhaps 
also  various  other  features  of  his  theory,  was  the  reverse,  since  a 
"  relation  "  is  usually  and  most  naturally  conceived  as  dependent  on  the 
two  or  more  terms  of  reality  for  its  existence.  That  is,  the  things 
related  are  the  prius  of  the  "  relation,"  and  this  can  in  no  way  "  con- 
dition "  their  existence,   even   though  it  represents  something  which 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  287 


encompasses  them.  But  it  was  a  mistake  to  call  it  a  '*  relation"  if  he 
meant  to  regard  it  as  in  any  way  conditioning  the  existence  of  reality, 
and  it  is  evident  that  Kant  saw  the  matter  in  this  light  when  he  so 
emphatically  denied  that  space  was  what  Leibnitz  affirmed  it  to  be. 
But  as  Leibnitz  denied  that  it  was  a  "property"  of  matter  and  affirmed 
that  it  was  only  a  "relation"  his  view  resulted  in  the  doctrine  of 
Boscovitch,  or  rather  was  this,  as  indicated  above,  namely,  that  matter 
in  its  real  nature  was  constituted  by  points  of  force,  and  so  was  space- 
less in  every  sense  of  the  term.  This  was  the  situation  when  Kant 
came.  But  before  taking  his  theory  up  for  consideration,  another 
problem  must  be  noticed  in  conjunction  with  the  Leibnitzian  doctrine 
of  space.  It  is  another  fundamental  conception  in  his  system,  namely, 
the  spontaneity  of  the  monads. 

The  primary  object  of  Leibnitz  was  to  refute  materialism.  This 
theory,  as  we  know,  explained  all  "  phenomena"  on  mechanical  prin- 
ciples. These  represent  the  transmission  of  force  through  matter  as  a 
passive  medium.  In  this  interpretation  of  mental  phenomena  we 
should  have  the  intromission  into  the  brain  of  impressions  from 
without.  The  mind  would  be  purely  receptive  of  everything  from  the 
external  world  after  the  manner  of  the  transmission  of  motion,  and  on 
the  assumption  that  effects  were  like  their  causes,  the  external  world 
would  be  properly  represented  in  the  internal,  and  "  perception  "  might 
well  be  regarded  as  giving  things  as  they  are  and  not  as  they  appear, 
unless  with  such  qualifications  as  attend  all  transmission  of  energy. 
In  brief,  materialism  makes  the  mind  a  passive  recipient  of  sensations 
and  "  knowledge"  from  without.  "Phenomena"  are  a  physicus  in- 
Jluxus  from  the  external  world.  In  other  words,  material  causation 
and  the  principle  of  identity  are  the  explanation  of  mental  "  phe- 
nomena." Now  Leibnitz  thought  to  refute  this  position  by  his  theory 
of  spontaneity  in  the  monads  and  of  preestablished  harmony.  This 
spontaneity  of  the  subject  shut  out  the  physicus  influxus  involved  in 
the  materialistic  hypothesis  and  made  the  subject  an  active  as  opposed 
to  a  passive  reality.  But  Leibnitz  did  not  mean  to  shut  out  a  real 
"  knowledge  "  of  the  external  reality  which  he  said  could  not  transmit 
its  processes  into  the  mind.  It  appears  to  some  thinkers  that  he  did 
not  provide  any  way  to  insure  this  external  "knowledge."  But  his 
doctrine  of  "occasional  causes,"  which  wras  virtually  identical  with 
the  idea  of  efficient  causes,  and  the  assumption  that  all  the  monads 
were  qualitatively  alike,  differing  only  in  degree  of  kind,  provided  an 
instigating  influence  for  inciting  mental  states,  while  the  identity  in 
kind  of  the  monads  insured  an  identity  of  their  action,  so  that  a  foreign 


2SS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

origin  for  "knowledge"  was  obtained  and  a  principle  of  identity  in- 
sured for  adjudging  the  nature  of  things.  Whether  he  was  correct  or 
not  is  not  the  problem  here,  but  only  the  fact  that  he  provided  for  the 
"  knowledge "  of  external  reality  consistently  with  his  doctrine  of 
spontaneity.  Hence  though  objective  reality  could  not  transmit  itself 
into  the  mind,  it  could  be  "known"  as  more  than  a  sensation  or  as 
something  subjective  and  ideal.  In  other  words,  whatever  defects  the 
Leibnitzian  idealism  had,  it  attempted  to  establish  a  subjectivity  which 
was  consistent  with  objectivity,  if  it  did  not  actually  imply  it.  Is  not 
this  an  intimation  of  the  reason  why  Kant  links  "subjective"  and 
"  objective"  together  in  connection  with  space? 

The  logical  influences  leading  Kant  into  the  denial  of  both  the 
Leibnitzian  and  other  conceptions  of  space  and  the  affirmation  of  its 
ideality  are  as  clear  as  they  are  inevitable.  He  had  at  one  time  ac- 
cepted the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  with  its  tendencies  toward  the  Bos- 
covitchian  points  of  force  as  an  explanation  of  all  reality,  whether 
material  or  spiritual.  But  Kant  saw  that,  if  "  knowledge"  had  to  be 
instigated  by  the  causal  action  of  the  external  world,  itself  spaceless 
in  so  far  as  space  was  supposed  to  be  a  "  property  "  of  it,  this  relation 
or  fact  could  not  be  "known"  in  the  same  way  that  matter  was 
"  known,"  because  it  was  no  part  of  the  causal  agent  and  was  not 
itself  an  active  reality.  As  a  consequence,  therefore,  the  association 
of  space  with  matter  in  experience  had  to  be  the  result  of  functions  not 
connected  organically  with  matter,  not  transmitted  to  the  mind  by  it  in 
sensation,  and  not  caused  by  the  external  "  relation,"  artfck  inactive 
thing  or  fact  between  the  monads,  but  the  product  or  "percept"  of 
the  mind's  own  action.  There  was  no  alternative  for  Kant  to  the  con- 
clusion that  spaceless  things  could  not  produce  space  "  perception"  in 
the  same  way  that  sensation  was  produced  and  that  an  inactive  thing 
could  not  produce  it. 

Now  Kant  did  not  accept  the  totality  of  the  Leibnitzian  doctrine. 
He  returned  to  the  materialistic  conception,  or  assumed  the  material- 
istic point  of  view  in  his  doctrine  of  the  "receptivity  of  sense"  (Re- 
ceptivitat  der  Sinnlichkeit)  in  which  external  objects  (aussere  Ersch- 
einungen  odor  Gegenstande)  were  given  (Gegeben),  and  retained 
spontaneity  explicitly  only  for  the  understanding  (Verstand)  and*  rea- 
son (Vernunft) .  In  this  way  he  obtained  an  external  world  of  "  sense  " 
without  the  spatial  accompaniment  and  made  this  latter  subjective.  To 
the  man  who  looks  at  the  doctrine  that  matter  consists  of  spaceless 
points  of  force  as  absurd,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  accepting  the 
objectivity  of  space  as  necessary  to  the  "  knowledge  "  of  matter,  inde- 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  2  So. 

pendently  of  the  question  how  it  was  effected.  But  to  the  man  who 
accepted  the  doctrine  of  Leibnitz  and  modified  it  to  the  extent  of  ad- 
mitting receptive  functions  for  the  "  knowledge  "  of  an  external  reality 
that  was  fer  se  spaceless,  there  was  no  alternative  to  the  conception 
that  space  was  a  subjective  product  or  "  percept  "  added  to  sensation 
and  giving  "matter"  a  "phenomenal"  character  or  appearance. 
Space  not  being  a  "property"  of  matter  nor  an  active  thing,  could 
neither  affect  the  sensorium  nor  be  "  known"  as  such  a  "  property." 
The  subjective  act  would  either  envelop  the  "  empirical  reality"  pre- 
cisely as  the  Leibnitzian  "relation"  enveloped  the  monads  without 
being  a  "  property  "  of  them,  or  "  perceive  "  space  without  supposing 
that  space  had  itself  produced  any  effect  on  the  subject,  but  was  sim- 
ply incited  in  the  mind  without  any  transmission  of  causal  influence 
from  without.  In  declaring  it  objective  Kant  showed  that  he  took  the 
latter  alternative. 

This  return  to  the  realistic  conception  of  sensation,  as  opposed  to 
the  Leibnitzian  idealism,  thus  making  it  receptive  as  did  materialism, 
carried  with  it  the  existence  of  external  reality,  that  is,  the  objective 
genesis  of  sensation,  even  if  it  be  afterward  regarded  as  subjective  in 
nature.  This  is  to  say  that,  though  it  has  an  objective  origin,  the 
genesis  is  not  to  be  interpreted  as  necessarily  carrying  with  it  a  pres- 
entative  conception  of  the  reality  "known,"  as  one  form  of  realism 
and  of  materialism  maintained,  but  may  consist  with  the  idea  of  efficient 
causes  producing  effects  which  do  not  represent  their  nature.  This 
view  of  objective  genesis  but  subjective  nature  supposes  that  reality  is 
not  "  known  "  by  the  principle  of  identity  but  is  objective  nevertheless, 
as  implied  in  the  idea  of  efficient  or  "occasional"  cause.  Now  when 
this  conception  of  the  possible  relation  between  "knowledge"  and 
reality  is  once  assumed,  namely,  that  externality  may  be  affirmable  or 
"known"  without  being  materially  presented  in  "perception,"  we 
may  ask  whether  Kant's  view  of  space  may  not  be  somewhat  similar, 
minus  the  conception  of  external  influence  in  producing  it.  He  refuses 
it  an  objective  origin  and  thus  seems  to  make  it  subjective  in  a  more 
radical  sense  than  sensation.  But  the  contention  here  is  that  he  may 
have  intended  it  to  have  a  subjective  origin  with  an  objective  import. 
How  can  this  possibility  be  made  clear  or  plausible  ?  We  might  answer 
this  question  with  the  assumption  of  the  mind's  spontaneity  in  its  space 
"perception"  (Raumanschauung),  but  Kant  does  not  explicitly  per- 
mit us  to  make  this  assumption,  except  as  implied  in  a  few  statements. 
He  only  distinctly  and  explicitly  applies  spontaneity  to  the  systematizing 
function  of  the  understanding    (Verstand)   and  to  the  idealizing  or 


290  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

speculative  function  of  reason  (Vermmft).  Of  course,  taking  space 
as  neither  "real"  (substance  or  attribute  of  anything)  nor  a  "rela- 
tion "  between  things  conditioned  by  these,  and  conceiving  it  as  con- 
ditioning matter  of  which  it  was  not  a  "property"  passive  or  active, 
he  could  not  suppose  that  the  "  perception  "  of  it  was  effected  as  that 
of  matter  was  produced,  and  so  had  to  make  it  nil  and  an  illusion,  or 
an  a  priori  "  intuition,"  whether  he  chose  to  regard  it  as  in  any  way 
presentative  or  not.1 

But  though  Kant  does  not  so  explicitly  indicate  the  interpretation 
suggested,  let  us  see  whether  it  is  not  forced  on  us  from  the  very  nature 
of  his  assumption  in  regard  to  the  nature  and  limits  of  sensation,  or 
the  objective  phenomena  of  sense.  We  must  remember  that  he  has 
said  that  space  is  infinite  and  not  a  "property"  of  things  in  them- 
selves. The  "  properties  "  of  matter  inhere  in  it  and  do  not  extend  as 
attributes  beyond  its  limitations,  Kant  having  at  least  implicitly  aban- 
doned the  Cartesian  view  of  matter  as  filling  all  space  and  returned 
more  or  less  to  the  atomistic  or  monadistic  conception  of  it  as  some- 
thing limited.  Now  this  matter,  or  objective  world,  made  itself 
"  known,"  or  produced  sensations,  by  acting  on  the  subject.  That  is, 
matter  acted  on  us  by  virtue  of  its  properties  which  in  fact  represented 

xTwo  references  suggesting  that  Kant  had  this  supposed  spontaneity  of 
sense  in  mind  may  be  quoted.  In  the  first  "  Allgemeine  Anmerkungen,"  speak- 
ing of  the  phenomenon  of  the  rainbow,  he  concludes  :  "  So  ist  die  Frage  von  der 
Beziehung  der  Vorstellung  auf  den  Gegenstand  transcendental  und  nicht  allein 
diese  Tropfen  sind  blose  Erscheinungen,  sondern  selbst  ihre  runde  Gestalt,  ja 
so  gar  der  Raum,  in  welchem  sie  fallen,  sind  Nichts  an  sich  selbst,  sondern 
blose  Modificationen  oder  Grundlagen  unserer  sinlichen  Anschauung."  The 
fact  to  be  specially  remarked  is  that  "  Raum,"  like  sensations,  in  one  respect  at 
least,  is  a  "  modification  "  of  the  mind.  If  Kant  does  not  mean  to  suppose  a 
difference  between  sensation  and  space  in  this  passage  he  has  no  right  to  his 
"  reine  Anschauung  "  and  hence  contradicts  his  main  doctrine.  But  it  can  be 
admitted  that  he  does  not  intend  any  such  contradiction  while  we  call  attention 
to  the  evident  desire  to  regard  space  "perception"  as  some  kind  of  active 
function. 

The  next  passage  is  in  the  second  "  Allgemeine  Anmerkungen."  Speaking 
directly  of  space  and  time  and  their  precondition  of  all  "experience,"  he  says: 
"Nun  ist  das,  was,  als  Vorstellung,  vor  aller  Handlung  irgend  etwas  zu  denken, 
vorhergehen  kann,  die  Anschauung,  welche,  da  sie  Nichts  vorstellt,  ausser  so- 
fern  Etwas  im  GemUthe  gesetzt  wird,  Nichts  anderes  sein  kann,  als  die  Art,  wie 
das  Gemiith  durch  eigene  Thatigkeit,  namlich,  dieses  Setzen  iher  Vorstellung, 
mithin  durch  sich  selbst  afficirt  wird,  d.  i.  ein  innerer  Sinn  seiner  Form  nach." 
The  expressions  "eigene  Thatigkeit  "  and  "durch  sich  selbst  afficirt"  are  ex- 
plicit recognitions  of  spontaneity  in  sense,  and  possibly  many  other  statements 
might  be  found  implying  the  same.  The  position  is  certainly  implied  in  his 
general  doctrine. 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY. 


that  action  on  us,  and  which  in  physical  parlance  would  be  called 
forces  (Krafte).  As  space  is  explicitly  affirmed  by  Kant  not  to  be  a 
''''Property"  of  matter  in  itself  (Dinge  an  sich),  a  fact  implied  by  its 
infinity,  if  "property"  is  made  convertible  with  finite  inhesion,  we 
can  readily  see  that  space  cannot,  on  Kant's  assumption,  act  on  sense. 
Only  "properties"  of  objects  are  "known"  in  that  way,  namely 
through  the  "receptivity  of  sense."  Hence  there  is  no  alternative  to 
the  assumption  that  space  has  a  purely  subjective  origin  as  a  "  percep- 
tion," and  the  only  question  that  remains  is  whether  it  has  an  objective 
import  other  than  as  a  fact  of  consciousness  which  we  can  contemplate 
as  any  other  mental  state. 

Now  as  space  is  not  a  "  property"  of  things,  as  an  "  intuition"  it 
must  be  a  function  or  ' '  property  "  of  something,  and  its  ideality  with- 
out objectivity  would  make  it  a  function  or  "  property"  of  the  subject. 
But,  as  seen,  its  infinity  must  imply  either  that  this  subject  is  infinite 
or  that  space  has  an  objectivity  of  some  kind,  one  or  the  other.  Kant 
has  not  affirmed  the  former,  and  cannot  do  this  without  supposing  a 
"thing  in  itself"  with  a  "property"  which  he  has  expressly  denied 
of  it.  Hence  we  are  left  with  "  Hobson's  choice"  of  objectivity  of 
some  type.  Kant  cannot  attribute  this  infinity  to  matter  as  "  phe- 
nomenon," since  he  must  limit  this  to  the  finitude  of  experience  or 
sensation,  and  having  denied  it  of  "things  in  themselves,"  he  must 
suppose  that  this  objectivity  is  of  a  fact  which  is  not  a  "  property"  of 
matter,  nor  a  relation  depending  on  matter  as  a  prius,  nor  an  active 
agent  on  sense  (Sinnlichkeit).  But  for  the  fear  that  he  would  have 
to  suppose  it  a  substance  or  an  attribute  of  something  else  than  matter, 
Kant  might  have  asserted  the  objectivity  more  clearly,  though  his  view 
of  sensation  would  require  him  still  to  make  the  "  perception"  of  it 
an  a  priori  subjective  act.  But  the  interpretation  thus  indicated  puts 
the  conception  where  it  is  in  science  generally,  in  which  it  is  con- 
ceived as  a  condition  of  the  existence  of  material  reality,  the  only  dif- 
ference being  that,  with  Kant,  it  is  incapable  of  causing  any  impres- 
sions on  sense,  that  is,  any  "intuition"  (Anschauung)  externally  ini- 
tiated. The  denial  that  it  is  a  "property"  of  things  prevents  it  from 
being  thus  externally  initiated,  according  to  Kant's  limitation  of  sen- 
sory impressions,  and  thus  determines  its  subjective  origin.  Its  in- 
finity prevents  it  from  being  purely  subjective  in  nature  and  from  being 
a  property  of  "  phenomena "  which  are  limited  to  the  finite,  and 
hence  in  some  sense  it  must  have  objectivity,  whether  presentative  or 
non-presentative.  We  have  seen  as  a  fact  that  Kant  speaks  of  it  as 
both  subjective  and  objective  without  feeling  that  he  is  describing  it  in 


292  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

contradictory  terms,  and  that  the  Leibnitz ian  philosophy  apparently 
makes  this  possible.  This  is  intelligible,  however,  only  on  the  sup- 
position that  he  is  not  assuming  the  usual  antithesis  between  the  two 
terms,  but  is  thinking  of  subjective  action  and  objective  import. 

The  position  just  taken  is  more  or  less  confirmed  by  interesting 
remarks  by  Kant  on  a  point  not  often,  if  ever,  mentioned  by  students 
and  which  apparently  deny  the  conclusions  above  conjectured.  The 
first  of  these  passages  occurs  in  the  "  Elauterung "  on  Time,  and 
the  second  in  the  "  Allgemeine  Anmerkungen."  Kant  complains 
that  the  assumption  of  the  "absolute  reality"  of  space  and  time, 
whether  "  subsistent  or  inherent,"  supposes  two  eternal  and  infinite 
"  Undinge  (Raura  und  Zeit) ,"  which  exist  without  being  real  (wirk- 
lich)  and  only  for  the  sake  of  incompassing  all  reality  (alles  Wirk- 
liche). 

I  shall  not  quote  the  whole  of  the  second  instance  in  which  the 
same  thought  is  repeated  with  emphasis,  but  simply  refer  the  reader 
to  the  whole  of  the  third  "  Allgemeine  Anmerkung."  In  this  pas- 
sage Kant  is  repudiating  the  accusation  that  his  doctrine  results  in 
making  space  and  time  illusions  (Scheine),  and  asserts  that :  "  If  we 
take  space  and  time  as  properties  that  ought  to  exist  in  things  them- 
selves, in  order  to  make  them  possible,  and  then  survey  the  absurdi- 
ties in  which  we  should  be  involved  in  having  to  admit  that  two  in- 
finite things,  which  are  not  substances,  nor  something  inherent  in 
substances,  but  nevertheless  must  be  something  existing,  nay,  the 
necessary  condition  of  the  existence  of  all  things,  would  remain,  even 
if  all  existing  things  were  removed,  we  really  cannot  blame  the  good 
Bishop  Berkeley  for  degrading  bodies  to  mere  illusion."  1  Then  Kant 
adds  that  our  own  existence  would  fall  with  such  suppositions. 

I  repeat  that  the  first  appearance  of  these  passages  is  that  they  are 
directly  opposed  to  the  contention  that  I  have  put  forward  as  a  possi- 
ble interpretation  of  Kant,  and  they  apparently  deny  in  the  clearest 
terms  the  "reality"  of  space  and  time.     But  before  admitting  the 

1  "  ^  .....  . den  Raum  und  die  Zeit  als  Beschaffenheiten  ansieht,  die  ihrer 

Mogli  eit  nach  in  Sachen  an  sich  angetroffen  werden  mussten,  und  iiberdenkt 
die  <;  reimtheiten,  in  die  man  sich  alsdenn  verwickelt,  indem  zwei  unendliche 
Dinj.  ,'die  nicht  Substanzen,  auch  nicht  etwas  wirklich  den  Substanzen  lnharir 
endes  dennoch  aber  Existirendes,  ja  die  nothwendige  Bedingung  der  Existence 
aller  nge  sein  mussen,  auch  ubrig  bleiben,  wenn  gleich  alle  Dinge  aufgeho- 
ben  wciden,  so  kann  man  es  dem  guten  Berkeley  wohl  nicht  verdenken,  wenn 
er  die  Korper  zu  blosem  Schein  herabsetze." 

It  should  be  noticed  that  in  this  passage  the  word  "  Dinge  "  is  used  where 
in  the  first  instance  "  Undinge"  is  used.  This  throws  light  upon  Kant's  con- 
ception of  the  problem. 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  293 


force  of  this,  which  I  grant  is  at  least  apparent,  let  me  call  attention 
to  an  interesting  circumstance.  It  is  the  fact  that  the  realist  always 
thinks  that  it  is  Kant's  ideality  of  space  that  gives  rise  to  all  the  ;  b- 
surdities  (Ungereimtheiten)  in  the  problem.  No  one  ever  seems  to 
have  dreamed  of  the  absurdities  that  Kant  apparently  indicates  are 
self-evident  on  the  realistic  theory.  They  have  all  seemed  on  the  other 
side.  Why  then  has  Kant  so  confidently  affirmed  them  when  they  have 
not  been  apparent  at  all  to  others? 

I  think  that  this  question  can  easily  be  answered.  Kant  has  wholly 
misapprehended  the  contention  of  epistemological  realism.  He  was 
dealing  with  metaphysical  or  ontological  realism.  Whatever  philoso- 
phers may  have  supposed  that  space  was  a  "  substance"  or  the  attri- 
bute of  some  substance  other  than  matter,  they  are  certainly  not  those 
who  gave  the  meaning  to  epistemological  realism.  Clarke  held  that 
space  was  the  attribute  of  some  substance,  and  Leibnitz  evidently  knew 
writers  who  did  the  same.  But  epistemological  realism,  as  the  result 
of  nominalism  and  of  the  reaction  against  Berkeley,  not  only  used  the 
term  "real"  as  denoting  anything  external  to  the  mind,  whether  sub- 
stantive or  not,  but  conceived  the  problem  of  "  knowledge  "  to  concern 
the  way  of  "knowing"  anything  beyond  consciousness,  and  was  not 
primarily  interested  in  the  nature  of  the  thing  "  known."  Hence  Kant 
was  using  language  which  was  intended  to  deny  ontological  realism 
when,  to  later  English  thought  it  appeared  to  deny  epistemological 
realism.  I  agree  that  if  space  and  time  are  to  be  considered  either  as 
"substances"  or  as  "  attributes"  we  fall  into  all  sorts  of  absurdities 
but  I  maintain  that,  whatever  the  aberrations  in  the  occasional  use  of 
language  may  be  in  forgotten  thinkers,  it  has  not  been  characteristic  of 
historical  and  epistemological  realism  to  assume  that  space  and  time 
were  "substances"  and  possibly  only  Spinoza,  Clarke,  and  a  few 
others  had  the  audacity  to  declare  them  attributes.  What  epistemo- 
logical realism  has  stood  for  is  the  fact  that  space  is  not  an  illusion  of 
the  senses,  nor  a  subjective  creation  of  the  mind.  It  has  supposed 
that  space  exists  in  some  way  external  to  the  mind  and  body.  Kant 
had  simply  confused  the  two  different  types  of  realism.  This  is  evi Jent 
in  the  fact  that  he  thought  he  was  dealing  with  the  same  issue  in  the  denial 
that  space  was  "  real"  and  at  the  same  time  in  the  denial  that  it  v  \  .  an 
illusion.  Moreover  Kant  should  have  remarked  also  that  realisn  has 
not  identified  itself  in  all  cases  with  the  doctrine  that  all  "  knowl  ."ge  " 
is  presentative,  that  is,  an  application  of  the  principle  of  identity  in 
some  form  to  the  relation  between  sensation  and  the  qualities  of  what 
it  supposes  is  external.     Realism  has  committed  itself  in  general  only 


294  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  the  fact  of  external  existence  in  order  to  escape  solipsism,  and  divided 
into  two  schools,  the  one  making  "knowledge"  of  externality  direct 
and  presentative  and  the  other  indirect  and  non-presentative.  Where 
space  and  time  have  been  concerned,  this  latter  school,  which  Hamil- 
ton calls  the  "  hypothetical  realists,"  has  perhaps  been  no  more  explicit 
than  Kant  on  the  question  whether  they  are  presentative  or  non-presen- 
tative of  external  nature.  But  they  would  all  agree  with  Kant  in 
accepting  the  absurdity  of  the  views  which  were  so  ridiculous  to  him. 
They  simply  spoke  of  them  as  conditions  of  the  existence  of  outer 
reality,  precisely  in  the  same  sense  in  which  Kant  makes  them  the 
"  conditions  of  external  phenomena"  (Bedingungen  der  ausseren  Er- 
scheinungen) . 

As  a  second  point  to  be  made,  a  critical  examination  of  the  passage 
quoted  will  show  that  all  the  absurdities  grow  out  of  Kant's  statement 
of  the  case  for  which  epistemological  realism  of  any  sort  is  not  respon- 
sible. Kant  supposes  that  the  absurdities  grow  out  of  the  assumptions 
that  space  and  time  are  active  properties  (Beschaffenheiten)  of  "  things 
in  themselves"  and  are  yet  neither  "  substances"  nor  "  attributes  "  in- 
hering in  substances,  but  the  necessary  condition  of  the  existence  of 
all  things.  I  agree  as  to  the  absurdity  of  supposing  them  properties 
of  that  which  they  condition,  but  it  is  not  the  conception  of  epistemo- 
logical realism.  Kant  is  confusing  the  doctrines  of  Spinoza  and  Car- 
tesian realists  and  assuming  them  to  be  the  same,  while  he  is  apparently 
ignorant  of  the  philosophic  movement  which  was  a  reply  to  Berkeley 
and  Hume.  I  doubt  whether  Kant  could  have  named  a  single  realist 
who  ever  stated  or  conceived  space  and  time  to  be  either  active  proper- 
ties or  limited  static  properties  of  reality.  It  is  possible  that  the  phi- 
losopher can  be  asked  to  consider  such  a  question  in  the  problem  of 
"knowledge  "  as  based  upon  the  causal  influence  of  objects  of  it.  But 
as  no  philosophers  except  the  Leibnitz ian  type  have  regarded  matter 
as  spaceless  the  question  did  not  naturally  arise,  and  Kant's  problem 
could  hardly  suggest  itself  until  that  point  of  view  was  advanced. 
Until  Leibnitz  put  forward  his  monadistic  system  with  its  dependence 
upon  spontaneity  for  "  knowledge"  of  all  reality,  and  also  for  consti- 
tuting the  very  nature  of  reality  itself,  the  question  of  space  and  time, 
and  of  all  facts  of  "  perception  "  resolved  itself  into  two  problems  :  ( i ) 
the  origin  of  u  knowledge,"  and  (2)  the  meaning  of  it.  Or  are  things 
mediately  or  immediately  "  known"?  It  was  not  whether  they  were 
"  perceived  "  or  "  known  "  by  a  causal  influence  on  the  subject,  but 
whether  they  could  be  "  perceived"  or  "known"  in  any  way  what- 
ever.    Epistemological  realism  supposed  a  causal  agency  in  the  pro- 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE   AND    OBJECTIVITY.  295 

duction  of  sensation  and  not  necessarily  of  '•'perception"  materially 
considered.  Hence  it  was  not  bound  either  to  suppose  a  causal  in- 
fluence of  space  on  the  subject  as  a  condition  of  being  "  perceived  "  or 
to  limit  "  perception"  to  the  subjective  state.  But  Kant  assumed  that 
no  "  knowledge"  was  possible  except  through  a  causal  action  on  the 
subject,  unless  it  was  a  priori,  and  then  between  the  subjective  nature 
of  such  an  act  and  the  absence  of  objective  causes  for  its  object  had  a 
confusing  situation  for  both  idealism  and  realism.  But  he  should  not 
have  confused  epistemological  and  ontological  realism  in  such  a  way 
as  to  suppose  that  the  usual  doctrine  of  space  involved  the  simultaneous 
assertion  of  its  being  a  "  property  "  and  a  "  condition"  of  things.  Its 
conception  of  it  as  a  "  property,"  when  this  was  supposed  in  any  sense 
at  all,  was  merely  that  of  a  predicate  affirmable  of  it  and  not  as  a  func- 
tion of  its  activity,  though  the  dynamic  theory  of  matter  may  even  do 
this.  There  was  no  contradiction  between  this  view  of  it  and  the 
assumption  that  space  is  the  condition  of  material,  or  even  of  any 
other,  reality.  We  have  only  to  take  the  form  of  statement  which 
Kant  adopts  for  phenomena  to  show  the  truth  of  this  position,  since 
what  is  supposed  to  "  condition  phenomena"  ought  not  to  suggest  an 
absurdity  when  applied  to  noumena,  as  the  term  "condition"  is  not 
supposed  to  imply  causality  of  an  efficient  or  creative  soil  in  either 
case.  That  is,  in  both  the  realistic  and  Kantian  theories,  the  relation 
expressed  by  "condition"  is  static,  not  dynamic,  whether  applied  to 
noumena  or  phenomena.  But  Kant  is  trying  to  accuse  realism  of 
assuming  that  space  and  time  are  dynamic  properties  of  things  as  a 
condition  of  being  "  perceived"  and  that  they  are  at  the  same  time  the 
static  prius  of  the  existence  of  these  things.  This,  of  course,  is  absurd 
enough,  but  that  it  is  the  doctrine  of  the  ordinary  epistemological 
realism  is  an  illusion  of  Kant's,  or  of  the  Kantian  philosophers. 

There  was  an  apology  for  Kant's  way  of  putting  the  case  in  his 
time,  as  there  were  metaphysical  theories  of  space  and  time  which 
epistemological  realism  since  then  has  not  been  required  to  consider. 
Consequently  I  am  here  providing  against  the  interpretation  of  the 
Kantian  philosophy  as  solving  the  problem  which  epistemology  has 
now  to  discuss,  though  I  am  also  endeavoring  to  show  that  the  very 
confusion  of  Kant  grew  out  of  the  transition  to  this  point  of  view 
and  admitted  into  it  conceptions  which  may  have  to  dominate  mod- 
ern doctrines.  He  had  to  mediate  between  ontological  and  epis- 
temological realism,  and  if  he  had  distinguished  between  them,  he 
might  have  indicated  more  clearly  a  position  that  would  have  been  less 
puzzling. 


296  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  real  objection  to  this  interpretation  of  Kant,  implying  that  his 
doctrine  is  a  form  of  epistemological  realism,  will  be  found  in  those 
statements  regarding  space  and  time  in  which  he  seems  to  deny  abso- 
lutely all  objectivity  to  them  whatsoever  and  which  seems  to  be  the 
logical  result  of  more  equivocal  assertions.  I  refer  to  two  of  them  as 
clear  illustrations.  The  first  is  near  the  beginning  of  the  first  "  Alle- 
gemeine  Anmerkung."  lie  says  that :  "  If  we  think  away  the  subject 
or  the  subjective  form  of  sense,  all  qualities,  all  relations  of  objects  in 
space  and  time,  nay  space  and  time  themselves  would  vanish.  They 
cannot  exist  as  phenomena  in  themselves,  but  only  in  us."1  The 
second  statement  to  which  I  call  attention  is  near  the  beginning  of 
section  twenty-three  in  the  "  Deduction  der  reinen  Verstandesbegriffe." 
He  says  :  "  Space  and  time  are  valid  as  conditions  of  the  possibility 
of  objects  as  given  to  us  in  experience,  but  they  are  nothing  more  :  for 
they  belong  only  to  the  sense  and  have  no  reality  beyond  them."2 
There  are  very  many  other  similar  statements,  though  perhaps  not  so 
definite  and  clear  in  their  real  or  apparent  denial  of  all  objectivity  to 
space  and  time,  as  presumably  affirmed  by  the  realist.  There  are 
many  that  are  equivocal  because  their  interpretation  is  subject  to  all 
sorts  of  ambiguities  in  such  terms  as  "  Anschauung,"  "  Erscheinung," 
"  Vorstellung,"  "  Gegenstand,"  "  Ausser,"  etc.  But  taken  generally 
with  what  is  understood  from  the  intention  of  the  system  as  reflected 
in  conceptions  that  cannot  be  discussed  here,  the  impression  is  over- 
whelming that  the  interpretation  which  I  have  presented  as  a  possible 
one  is  not  within  the  meaning  of  Kant. 

I  am  not  going  to  dispute  the  apparent  force  of  the  facts  or  state- 
ments just  noted,  nor  shall  I  be  so  confident  that  I  have  penetrated  the 
mysteries  of  the  Kantian  doctrines  as  to  claim  more  certitude  for  this 
interpretation  than  the  possibilities  involve.  But  I  think  that  I  can 
reinforce  these  possibilities  by  some  important  qualifications  of  the 
passages  which  have  been  quoted  and  which  are,  perhaps,  the  strongest 
that  Kant  has  used,  while  I  refer  to  one  or  two  statements  by  him  ap- 
parently contradictory  but  quite  consistent  writh  the  view  that  I  am 
here  taking  of  his  probable  thought. 

1"Wenn  wir  unser  Subject  oder  auch  nur  die  subjective  Beschaffenheit  der 
Sinne  uberhaupt  aufheben,  alle  die  Beschaffenheit,  alle  Verhaltnisse  der  objecte 
im  Raum  und  Zeit,  ja  selbst  Raum  und  Zeit  verschwinden  wurden,  und  als 
Erscheinungen  nicht  an  sich  selbst,  sondern  nur  in  us  existiren  konnen." 

2  "  Raum  und  Zeit  gelten,  als  Bedingungen  der  moglichkeit,  wie  uns  Gegen- 
standegegeben  werden,  nicht  weiter,  als  fur  Gegenstande  der  Sinne,  mithin  der 
Erfahrung.  Ueber  diese  Grenzen  hinaus  stellen  sie  gar  Nichts  vor ;  denn  sie 
sind  nur  in  den  Sinnen  und  haben  ausser  ihnen  keine  Wircklichkeit." 


PERCEPTION    OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  297 

The  first  qualification  is  that  they  are  strong  only  in  their  isolation. 
We  must  not  forget  that  Kant's  terminology  is  such  that  its  meaning 
cannot  always  be  determined  by  the  most  obtrusive  considerations, 
which  are  the  common  currency  of  the  ideas  expressed  by  the  terms. 
I  think  that  I  have  shown  this  in  those  passages  which  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  interpret  in  the  light  of  previous  and  contemporaneous  phil- 
osophic conceptions.  I  apparently  relied  upon  isolated  passages  for 
the  interpretation  which  I  have  given,  but  in  fact  I  chose  them  only  as 
most  favorable  to  the  illustration  of  the  method  by  which  I  think  Kant 
must  be  judged.  Their  paradoxical  and  apparently  contradictory 
character  were  precisely  the  statements  whose  meaning  could  be  made 
evident  only  in  the  light  of  the  philosophy  which  influenced  the  de- 
velopment of  Kant.  It  is  the  same  with  isolated  statements  which 
seem  to  be  opposed  to  the  interpretation  that  I  have  been  presenting. 
They  must  be  understood  in  relation  to  the  whole,  or  at  least  in  rela- 
tion to  the  ideas  that  Kant  once  accepted  and  was  now  giving  up. 
Whatever  we  think  of  Kant's  Kritik  we  must  treat  it  as  a  unified 
system  or  a  chaos.  To  assume  that  it  is  a  chaos  is  to  refuse  to  study 
the  psychology  of  a  mind  that  has  all  the  appearances  of  being  syste- 
matic. The  fact  that  Kant,  wdiether  rationally  or  not,  made  his  sys- 
tem turn  about  the  distinctions  between  noumena  and  phenomena, 
sense  and  understanding,  the  subjectivity  of  space  and  time  as  opposed 
to  their  "  reality,"  not  necessarily  to  their  objectivity,  shows  some 
kind  of  unity  that  is  worth  ascertaining,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  as 
a  means  of  discovering  the  apparent  inconsistencies  in  it.  Of  course, 
if  we  can  find  any  principle  that  will  give  the  system  a  larger  unity 
and  intelligibility  than  is  on  the  surface,  or  remove  the  difficulties 
which  many  have  in  the  study  of  it,  the  result  may  be  worth  the  pains. 
Hence,  for  the  reason  just  mentioned,  namely,  the  evident  existence 
of  some  ruling  conception  wdiich  determined  the  whole  complicated 
doctrine,  we  must  endeavor  to  ascertain  just  what  unity  or  consistency 
and  contradictions  it  contains.  To  do  this  we  cannot  rely  upon  iso- 
lated passages  alone  for  either  proving  or  disproving  an  interpretation. 
We  must  study  the  system  in  the  light  of  the  philosophic  conceptions 
which  certainly  determined  Kant's  fundamental  ideas  in  their  content 
and  which  will  make  the  interpretation  intelligible  and  possible. 

Following  out  this  method  in  regard  to  the  passages  quoted,  I 
wish  first  to  call  attention  to  a  minor  matter  that  may  be  of  some  value, 
at  least  of  a  conditional  kind,  in  the  understanding  of  the  psychological 
and  logical  influences  operating  unconsciously  on  Kant's  mind.  This 
is  his   use   of  the  terms  '-' Wirklich  "  and  "  Wirklichkeit."     He  uses 


298  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

them,  at  least  apparently,  as  interchangeable  with  "real"  and  "  re- 
ality." This  convertibility  of  the  terms  may  be  disputed,  unless  by 
actual  definition  we  clearly  indicate  their  identity.  Lotze  remarks 
that  "  Wirklich  "  in  the  German  language  implies  activity,  whether 
as  effect  as  related  to  a  cause,  or  as  action  which  brings  about  this 
effect.  In  the  history  of  philosophy,  "real"  and  "reality"  have  as 
often,  perhaps  most  generally,  had  the  implication  of  static  existence 
of  some  sort.  This  conception  would  enable  us  to  describe  space  and 
time  as  the  realist  does,  and  as  Kant  evidently  intends  them  to  be 
described.  On  the  assumption  of  his  difference  between  "  real  "  and 
"wirklich,"  we  can  well  understand  Kant's  repudiation  of  the  objec- 
tivity of  space  and  time  in  such  statements  as  I  have  quoted,  especially 
as  the  only  activity  that  he  supposes  in  "  knowledge"  is  the  activity  of 
objects  in  which  space  does  not  inhere  as  a  "  property,"  but  of  which 
it  is  a  "condition,"  and  also  the  pure  activity  of  the  understanding 
which  unifies  experience,  and  possibly  the  pure  activity  of  "  intuition  ** 
(reine  Anschauung)  as  the  origin  of  space  "  perception."  That  isr 
space  and  time  as  static  realities  do  not  and  cannot  act  on  sense,  even 
if  we  suppose  that  sense  "  perceives  "  them  as  external  objects  of  "  in- 
tuition." This  is  clear  in  one  passage  in  which  Kant  asks  how  it  is 
possible  to  have  an  experience  of  absolutely  empty  space  (Denn  wer 
kann  eine  Erfahrung  von  Schlecthin-Leeren  haben?).  That  Kant 
may  have  had  this  conception  of  "  wirklich  "  is  quite  possible  when  we 
observe  the  unconscious  influence  of  Leibnitz  on  his  thinking,  as  is 
definitely  admitted  in  his  use  of  spontaneity,  especially  as  this  general 
conception  influences  him  in  all  but  the  receptivity  of  sense,  and  even 
in  his  conception  of  the  causal  action  of  objects  on  the  subject  which 
must  be  active  to  produce  sensations.  I  shall  not  urge  the  case,  how- 
ever, solely  on  the  strength  of  his  possible  use  of  "  wirklich,"  as  this 
may  savor  too  much  of  a  logomachy  and  because  the  real  fact,  which 
lies  behind  these  isolated  passages  that  I  have  quoted  and  that  have 
their  meaning  determined  by  it,  is  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  "  thing  in 
itself."  The  whole  question  of  what  Kant  means  by  the  ideality  of 
space  and  time,  and  of  the  interpretation  which  I  have  here  advanced, 
as  connecting  him  more  closely  with  epistemological  realism  than  he 
and  his  defenders  usually  suppose,  depends  on  this  conception  of  a 
"thing  in  itself"  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  his  system.  I  shall  have 
to  traverse  the  whole  problem  again  in  the  light  of  this  idea. 

It  is  impossible  to  repress  a  smile  as  I  approach  this  subject  of  the 
"  thing  in  itself,"  after  the  floods  of  commentary  and  discussion  that 
center  about  it.     The  subject  reminds  one  of  the  famous  passage  in  the 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  299 

Kritik  about  truth  and  the  foggy  ocean  which  we  must  traverse  in 
search  of  it  with  more  or  less  assurance  of  shipwreck  and  failure.  But 
I  am  not  going  to  engage  in  any  elaborate  philological  investigation  of 
Kant's  statements  to  elucidate  this  perplexing  doctrine.  I  shall  state 
it  in  general .  terms  and  allow  the  student  to  examine  and  verify  the 
case  for  himself. 

The  first  thing  to  remark  in  any  attempt  to  say  what  Kant  meant 
by  "  Dinge  an  sich"  is  in  the  fluctuating  conception  which  he  himself 
took  of  them.  This  is  most  apparent  in  the  modifications  which  were 
introduced  into  the  second  and  later  editions  of  his  work.  Every  stu- 
dent will  recall  the  discussion  on  noumena  and  phenomena  in  the  first 
edition,  omitted  in  the  second  and  later  editions,  which  distinctly  indi- 
cate that  Kant  at  one  time  conceived  "Dinge  an  sich  "  as  the  causes 
of  phenomena.  The  omission  of  this  in  later  discussions  shows  greater 
consistency  in  his  doctrine,  and  intimates  at  the  same  time  that  he 
intended  to  abandon  that  idea.  He  found  that  he  could  not  maintain 
this  position,  namely  that  they  were  the  causes  of  phenomena,  the 
condition  of  their  being  "known,"  and  still  assert  that  they  were 
"unknown."  He  had  only  gradually  moved  from  the  metaphysical 
to  the  scientific  state  of  his  thinking  and  in  the  transition  he  carried 
the  conceptions  of  the  one  over  to  the  other  when  they  should  have 
been  abandoned.  He  had  been  the  victim  of  that  philosophy  which 
had  retained  the  superphysical  world  as  any  explanation  of  all  things 
after  it  had  admitted  the  supersensible  physical  world  at  the  basis  of 
natural  "  knowledge."  The  superphysical  world  above  space  and 
time  was  the  "thing  in  itself"  and  so  at  first  the  ultimate  cause  of 
everything.  But  the  admission  of  causality  into  the  physical  world  as 
the  agency  causing  sensation,  against  Malebranche's  "  seeing  all  things 
in  God,"  made  it  necessary  to  abandon  the  "Ding  an  sich"  as  the 
basis  of  "  knowledge,"  and  to  reconstruct  the  whole  problem.  In  the 
explanation  of  "knowledge"  Kant  started  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
subjective  nature  of  sensation  in  respect  of  its  character  as  a  mental 
act,  but  with  an  objective  origin,  and  with  this  assumption  he  saw 
that  he  must  take  the  view  that  it  was  non-presentative  of  the  nature 
of  reality.  This  made  the  distinction  between  the  "  nature  of  things  " 
and  their  "appearance"  necessary,  so  that  if  we  should  identify 
"  knowledge"  with  the  subjective  states  we  should  have  to  say  that 
we  did  not  "  know  "  the  "  nature  of  things,"  but  only  their  "  appear- 
ance." To  escape  from  any  such  statement  we  should  have  to  give 
that  definition  of  "  knowledge  "  which  extended  it  beyond  mere  having 
mental  states  to  the  "  perception  "   or  intuition  of  a  transcendental 


300  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

reality.  Kant  never  gives  us  as  definite  a  notion  of  this  as  he  should 
have  done,  but  whether  he  did  so  or  not  is  indifferent  to  the  question 
as  to  what  suggested  the  limitations  of  "  knowledge"  to  the  non-pre- 
sentative  realist.  In  this  view,  as  with  Kant,  reality  was  considered 
as  the  cause  of  sensation  or  "  phenomena,"  and  it  was  quite  willing  to 
admit  a  sense  in  which  we  did  not  "  know"  things.  This  sense  was 
that  of  having  them  "in"  consciousness  though  objects  of  it.  For 
"knowledge"  it  did  not  require  to  go  "behind"  this  cause  for  any- 
thing else  deeper,  unless  this  cause  gave  evidence  of  being  an  effect, 
and  when  it  went  "behind"  such  a  cause  it  did  not  find  it  necessary 
to  transcend  space  and  time  to  obtain  what  it  was  pleased  to  call  the 
Absolute.  It  was  content  to  suppose  a  reality  that  transcended  all 
dependent  reality,  not  any  and  all  reality  that  might  show  equally 
independent  character.  It  might  or  might  not  stop  with  "  God,"  just 
as  it  pleased.  But  in  so  far  as  mediate  or  immediate  "knowledge" 
was  concerned,  it  could  stop  with  a  "nature"  of  things  not  given  in 
sensory  data,  simply  because  these  were  assumed  to  be  non-presenta- 
tive.  Anything  further  depended  on  the  discovery  of  relativity  to 
causes  in  this  "nature"  of  things.  It  was  this  tendency  in  general 
philosophic  speculation  to  seek  something  more  transcendental  than  the 
supersensible  object  of  sensible  experience  that  gave  rise  to  the  idea  of 
a  "thing  in  itself"  above  space  and  time,  and  having  once  accepted 
this  with  the  assumption  that  all  else  was  "  phenomenon,"  mode,  acci- 
dent, it  was  difficult  to  get  away  from  this  habit  of  thought  when  the 
cause  became  the  supersensible  object  of  experience.  In  other  words, 
Kant  never  distinguished  between  presentative  realism  and  scholastic 
transcendentalism,  on  the  one  hand,  nor  between  non-presentative  or 
hypothetical  realism  and  the  ontological  realism,  on  the  other,  which 
he  was  combating. 

It  was  the  influence  of  another  philosophy  than  epistemological 
realism,  whether  of  the  "  common  sense  "  or  the  hypothetical  sort,  that 
produced  Kant's  conception  of  the  "  Ding  an  sich."  It  was  the 
residuum  left  after  he  had  studied  Leibnitz  and  Spinoza  and  forgot  to 
abandon  after  he  had  denied  their  doctrines.  Spinoza  taught  him  to 
conceive  the  "  Absolute"  as  a  prius  of  both  physical  and  mental  attri- 
butes, and  hence  as  a  prius  of  space  and  time.  Leibnitz  at  least 
apparently  taught  him  to  believe  in  spaceless  and  timeless  points  of 
force  as  the  basis  of  both  mental  and  physical  phenomena.  These 
phenomena  were  given  in  "  internal  and  external  sense"  (innere  und 
aussere  Sinnlichkeit),  and  were  not  representative  of  "things  in 
themselves."     Kant  thus  came  to  accept  "realities"  which  not  only 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  301 

transcended  sense  "  knowledge,"  but  which  also  transcended  space  and 
time,  and  then  identified  these  "  realities  "  with  the  non-presentative 
objects  of  the  hypothetical  realist  who  had  never  been  implicated  in 
the  metaphysics  of  either  Spinoza  or  Leibnitz.  When  he  finally 
limited  objective  "  knowledge  "  to  sense,  which  the  assumed  realism 
of  the  Spinozists  and  Leibnitzians  did  not  do,  he  ought  to  have  given 
up  the  existence  of  any  "thing  in  itself"  and  he  would  have  had  no 
trouble  in  his  problem.  He  actually  did  abandon  it  logically  when  he 
said  that  it  was  "unknown,"  but  he  still  clung  to  "  things  in  them- 
selves "  as  facts  after  he  had  abandoned  the  evidence  for  them,  namely, 
their  causal  action  on  the  subject,  and  made  his  conception  of  them 
nevertheless  the  basis  of  distinctions  that  were  both  unnecessary  and 
misleading,  because  they  were  distinctions  between  nothing  for 
"  knowledge  "  and  all  that  it  did  know.  It  is  curious  to  call  such  a 
conception  a  limiting  or  defining  concept  (Grenzbegriff),  and  quite  as 
curious  also  to  call  it  a  "  begriff  "  of  any  kind  after  he  had  said  that  a 
"  Ding  an  sich"  was  both  "  unknown"  and  indefinable ! 

Now  to  put  this  in  common  English,  Kant,  abandoning  the  view  of 
Leibnitz  that  all  activity  originates  with  the  subject  and  returning  to 
the  materialistic  conception  of  sensation,  started  with  the  conception 
that  we  "know"  things  by  virtue  of  their  "properties"  which  are 
activities  on  sense.  Then  with  the  view  that  space  and  time  were 
conditions,  not  active  "properties"  of  things  and  that  "  things  in 
themselves "  are  spaceless  and  timeless,  while  space  and  time  were 
"known"  as  facts  in  sensory  experience  or  "intuition,"  Kant  could 
only  say  that  they  were  not  properties  of  "things  in  themselves"  and 
hence  the  last  could  not  be  "  known,"  space  and  time  being  the  con- 
ditions of  both  "  knowledge  "  and  reality.  Consequently,  for  "  knowl- 
edge" these  "things  in  themselves"  could  have  no  properties  what- 
ever. This  was  precisely  what  Kant  had  to  mean  by  his  "  Ding  an 
sich,"  and  he  indicated  as  much  when  he  abandoned  its  causal  influence 
on  sense.  For  "knowledge"  it  had  to  be  an  entirely  propertyless 
reality  because,  on  the  one  hand,  it  was  not  an  object  of  sensory  ex- 
perience, and  on  the  other,  was  spaceless  and  timeless.  This  property- 
less  reality,  though  regarding  it  as  "  unknown,"  in  spite  of  its  accep- 
tance as  a  fact,  he  confused  with  the  non-presentative  nature  of  things 
of  the  epistemological  realist  which  was  admittedly  "  known  "  as  an 
object  of  judgment  but  not  of  sense.  That  is,  Kant  had  two  sets  of 
"  Dinge  an  sich,"  one  a  spaceless  and  timeless  "reality"  beyond  all 
sensory  "  knowledge  "  and  the  other  an  "  objective  reality  "  which  had 
properties  capable  of  affecting   sense   but  not  presented  in   it.     His 


302  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

conception  was,  as  will  be  shown  later  in  detail,  that  sensory  "  knowl- 
edge "  was  caused  (efficiently)  by  objects,  but  that  the  sensory  ideas 
did  not  represent  or  present  the  object  directly  to  consciousness  as 
"  intuition,"  following  the  Leibnitzian  postulate  that  nothing  could  be 
transmitted  into  the  subject.  This  latter  reality,  the  "  object"  of  one 
form  of  realism,  Kant  admitted  to  be  "  known"  at  least  in  some  sense, 
though  he  does  make  it  clear  how  we  "  know"  it,  as  he  did  not  con- 
sciously introduce  into  his  Kritik  the  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason 
for  the  purpose  of  explicating  his  position,  after  having  asserted  in  the 
Nova  Dilucidatio  that  it  should  supplement  the  Principle  of  Identity 
in  the  problem  of  "  knowledge."  The  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason 
was  tacitly  assumed  and  used  in  the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  sensory 
experience  and  the  causal  influence  of  "objects,"  but  it  was  not 
analyzed  and  explicitly  developed  in  a  way  to  show  the  relation  between 
the  subjective  and  objective  aspects  of  "  knowledge." 

One  of  these  "  Dinge  an  sich"  Kant  obtained  from  a  priori  meta- 
physics and  the  other  from  the  psychological  interpretation  of  sensa- 
tion and  its  cause,  and  supposed  from  the  process  of  abstraction  con- 
nected with  both  of  them  that  he  was  dealing  with  the  same  reality. 
As  the  former  is  a  non-entity  for  "  knowledge,"  it  must  be  thrown  out 
of  all  consideration  in  the  problem  of  epistemology  and  all  propositions 
whose  meaning  is  determined  by  the  assumption  of  such  a  conception 
must  be  treated  accordingly.  This  means  that  the  distinctions  in 
Kant's  philosophy  which  are  based  upon  the  assumption  of  this  non- 
entity must  be  declared  useless.  Hence  in  order  to  criticise  or  under- 
stand the  Kantian  doctrine  of  space,  we  have  neither  to  defend  the  prop- 
osition that  space  and  time  are  "properties,"  or  "relations,"  or 
"  conditions"  of  things  in  themselves  in  this  transcendental  sense,  nor 
to  suppose  the  existence  of  such  things  at  all.  The  only  "Ding  an 
sich,"  if  the  phrase  be  tolerated  at  all,  which  we  need  assume  is  the 
"  objective  reality"  of  the  non-presentative  realists  which  Kant  actu- 
ally admits  as  the  cause  of  sensation.  This  makes  his  position, 
whether  you  call  it  idealism  or  not,  convertible  with  one  form  of  real- 
ism, and  the  only  question  that  remains  is,  whether  he  accepts  any 
doctrine  of  the  "  objectivity"  of  space.  Let  us  examine  this  question 
somewhat  further. 

Owing  to  the  double  origin  of  Kant's  conception  of  "Dinge  an 
sich,"  the  metaphysical  origin  of  one  and  the  psychological  or  episte- 
mological  origin  of  the  other,  the  denial  that  space  is  either  a  "  prop- 
erty," "a  relation,"  or  a  "condition"  of  "things  in  themselves" 
also  has  a  double  import.     In  connection  with  the  former,  it  is  not 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  303 

only  a  truism,  an  implication  in  the  very  conception  of  them  both  as 
"unknown"  and  as  spaceless  and  timeless,  but  it  also  implies  that 
these  so-called  "  properties"  have  absolutely  no ±r elation  whatever  to 
them.  In  connection  with  the  latter,  it  does»jyiean  that  they  have  no 
relation  to  "reality"  that  is  "known,"  but  tnat  they  are  not  active 
"properties"  of  it,  that  is,  not  activities  of  sense,  though  related  to 
"  objects  "  precisely  as  realists  of  all  shades  of  belief  have  maintained. 
That  this  is  the  fact  is  clearly  indicated  by  his  calling  it  a  "  condition 
of  external  phenomena"  (Bedingung  der  ausseren  Erscheinungen), 
and  his  constant  assignment  of  "objective  reality"  to  the  causes  of 
sensation,  even  though  it  was  qualified  by  terms  associated  with  ideal- 
ism. There  was  an  equivocation  in  his  use  of  the  term  "  phenom- 
enon "  (Erscheinung)  which  I  shall  notice  again  and  which  shows 
that  he  had  in  mind  the  conception  that  I  wish  to  defend.  But  it  is 
most  noticeable  that  he  does  not  speak  of  space  as  a  "property"  of 
"external  phenomena,"  but  only  as  their  "form"  or  "condition." 
There  is  an  apparent  exception  to  this  statement.  It  is  in  the  "  Trans- 
cendental Exposition  of  Space."  He  says,  speaking  of  it,  "  this 
predicate  is  attributed  to  things  in  so  far  as  they  appear  to  us,  that  is, 
as  objects  of  sense."  This,  however,  it  should  be  remarked,  does  not 
speak  of  space  as  a  "property,"  but  only  as  something  predicable  of 
things  as  "phenomena"  (Erscheinungen),  while  it  is  conceived  as  a 
"condition"  of  them  as  "  objects"  precisely  as  the  realists  of  the 
epistemological  type,  and  many  of  the  ontological  type,  have  main- 
tained. But  though  he  assigned  space  this  relation,  did  he  intend  to 
regard  it  as  objective  or  external  in  any  sense?  The  answer  to  this 
question  must  combine  several  considerations,  and  among  them  must 
be  a  careful  examination  of  Kant's  conception  of  "  phenomena." 

The  first  answer  is  the  question  whether  any  one  is  willing  to 
maintain  that  Kant  accepted  solipsism.  If  he  did  not,  he  admitted  the 
externality  of  something  other  than  his  sensations.  It  is  apparent  in 
his  system  that  he  did  hold  to  objective  existence  other  than  himself, 
even  if  he  made  this  objective  existence  nothing  but  the  personal  con- 
sciousness of  another,  and  any  man  who  goes  this  far  has  no  absolute 
criterion  against  the  affirmation  of  other  external  reality,  if  its  creden- 
tials are  shown  to  be  as  good  or  the  same  as  that  which  he  believes, 
and  which  was  accepted  as  a  condition  of  having  sense  experience 
at  all. 

Having  found  that  Kant  does  admit  an  external  reality,  as  a  datum 
of  sense,  we  then  ask  what  he  meant  by  "phenomenon"  (Erschein- 
ung) and  "  object"  (Gegenstand) .     Did  he  regard  these  as  objective, 


304  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  merely  subjective  mental  states  in  their  nature  non-presentative  of 
external  reality? 

The  answer  to  this  is  simple  and  clear.  (1)  Kant's  use  of  the 
term  "  phenomenon  "  is  equivocal.  It  is  very  generally  identified  with 
sensation  (Empfindung),  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  "  object"  (Gegen- 
stand),  on  the  other,  sensation  and  object  not  being  intentionally  iden- 
tified at  any  time.  Sensation  Kant  regards  as  a  subjective  mental  state 
not  like  the  qualities  of  objects  and  objects  as  the  efficient  causes  of 
sensation.  The  idea  that  his  "  phenomenon"  was  u  only  appearance  " 
without  anything  appearing  is  a  misunderstanding  of  Kant's  real  doc- 
trine, as  1  think  is  quite  evident  from  the  next  consideration.  (2) 
Kant  constantly  identifies  ''phenomenon"  (Erscheinung)  and  "ob- 
ject" (Gegenstand),  and  he  as  constantly  refers  to  "objects  of  sense" 
in  which  he  indicates  that  they  are  not  sensations.  He  is  even  very 
careful  to  say  that  "  Erscheinungen "  are  not  illusions  (Scheme),  as 
students  of  him  well  know.  He  constantly  speaks  of  objects  affecting 
sense,  so  that  his  conception  of  them  is  that  of  causes  of  sensation,  not 
the  subjective  states  themselves.  This  gives  them  objectivity  in  a  per- 
fectly rational  sense  of  the  term  as  external  to  the  subject,  and  as  they 
may  be  non-presentative  in  nature  we  have  in  "  Erscheinung "  and 
"  Gegenstand  "  precisely  the  objective  realities  which  were  the  "  Ding 
an  sich "  of  the  hypothetical  or  non-presentative  realists.  (3)  Kant 
actually  defines  "Erscheinung"  as  the  "  indefinite  object  of  percep- 
tion" (der  unbestimmte  Gegenstand  der  Wahrnehmung),  in  which  he 
both  identifies  "  Erscheinung"  and  "  Gegenstand "  and  implies  that, 
though  "Erscheinung"  is  a  datum  of  sense,  it  is  not  always  used  to 
denote  the  sensation  itself.  The  qualification  "  unbestimmt  "  indi- 
cates the  abstraction  of  the  subjective  side  of  sense  with  the  retention 
of  a  supersensible  object  and  implies  the  same  indefiniteness  which  the 
idealists  generally  like  to  charge  against  realists  when  these  do  not  de- 
fine their  "real"  in  terms  of  the  principle  of  identity.  The  trouble 
with  Kant  was  that  he  forgot  the  equivocal  complexity  of  sense  ( Sinn- 
lichkeit)  which,  as  representing  subjective  states,  was  a  combination 
of  sensation  (Empfindung)  and  apprehension  (Anschauung),  and  as 
representing  the  "  knowledge"  of  external  objects  was  a  combination 
of  sensation  and  judgment,  the  latter  not  being  explicitly  indicated  by 
Kant.  On  the  contrary,  while  it  is  Judgment  that  should  have  been 
his  source  for  reality,  objects  of  sense,  he  admits  constantly  that  it  is 
sense  (Sinnlichkeit)  through  "Empfindung"  and  "  Anschauung,"  or 
these  together  in  "Wahrnehmung,"  that  external  objects  are  given. 
Sensations  give  or   are    subjective    states,    and    "  intuitions,"  which, 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  305 

though  subjective  acts,  represent  the  "  perception  "  of  objects  and  are 
not  the  direct  effects  of  external  causes  in  the  same  sense  that  sensa- 
tions are.  We  may  discover  in  this  the  key  to  the  solution  of  the 
problem  almost  in  Kant's  own  terms.  Having  found  that  he  admits 
in  "  Gegenstande"  an  external  reality  other  than  mental  states  and  that 
he  applies  the  concept  of  objectivity  to  space  we  have  to  ask  in  what 
sense  he  does  this. 

The  answer  to  this  question  involves  several  observations  and  in  the 
end  a  possible  qualification  with  which  the  objectivity  of  space  is 
admitted.  (1)  "  Empfindung"  gives  sensations  which  are  externally 
instigated  but  subjective  in  their  nature  :  "empirische  Anschauung  " 
gives  "  objects  "  (Gegenstande)  which  are  objective  realities  acting  on 
sense:  "  reine  Anschauung"  gives  space  and  time,  and  the  question 
remains  whether  these  are  objective  also  and  related  to  "  Gegenstande  " 
as  realists  suppose  without  their  being  "properties"  of  objects  acting 
on  the  subject.  (2)  Now  "  Gegenstande  "  affect  sense  by  virtue  of 
their  "  properties  "  which  are  dynamically  conceived  after  the  Leibnit- 
zian  philosophy  to  be  activities  in  some  form.  Through  them  and  the 
sensations  they  produce  "empirische  Anschauung  "  obtains  external 
reality  or  objects.  I  would  add  to  this,  what  I  think  Kant  would 
admit,  namely,  that  it  is  the  category  of  causality  that  must  be  impli- 
cated in  "  empirische  Anschauung."  (3)  Space  being  infinite  is  not 
a  property  of  matter  (Gegenstande),  and,  whether  infinite  or  not,  is 
not  an  active  function,  but  a  static  condition  or  predicate  of  it,  and  con- 
sequently cannot  affect  sense.  The  result  is  that,  if  we  "  perceive"  it 
at  all,  we  must  do  so  by  virtue  of  an  "  a  priori"  or  spontaneous  func- 
tion of  sense,  not  stimulated  by  external  objects  but  instigated  by  the 
sensation  itself.  This  is  Kant's  "  reine  Anschauung."  Does  it  give 
external  reality  to  its  object?  (4)  All  "intuitions"  (Anschauungen) 
give  objectivity,  whether  representative  of  the  real  or  not  and  in  spite 
of  their  subjective  origin  and  nature  as  mental  acts.  Only  "  Empfin- 
dung "  gives  pure  subjectivity.  "  Anschauung,"  which  is  considered 
as  an  act  of  the  subject,  has  reference  to  external  reality  without  regard 
to  origin  and  simply  because  it  is  "  intuition."  Hence  the  case  can  be 
summarized  as  follows  : 

"  Empfindung  "  has  an  objective  origin,  but  a  subjective  meaning; 
"empirische  Anschauung"  has  an  objective  origin  and  an  objective 
meaning;  "  reine  Anschauung "  has  a  S7tbjective  origin,  but  an 
objective  meaning,  as  well  as  a  subjective.  The  consequence  is  that 
we  have  two  functions  here  for  objectivity  instead  of  the  one  general 
act  of  sensory  "perception"  as  ordinarily  conceived,  the  two  being 


30b  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

made  necessary  by  Kant's  conception  of  the  limitations  of  reality  in 
respect  of  its  "  properties,"  and  possibly  made  necessary  on  any  theory 
of  the  external  world.  But  the  complication  of  space  "  intuition  "  with 
the  language  of  subjectivity  in  its  genesis  and  meaning  as  such  a  prod- 
uct with  the  same  description  of  sensation  which  did  not  represent 
reality  in  any  sense  made  it  difficult  to  understand  any  objective  import 
in  space  "perception"  without  explicitly  remarking  that  all  cognitive 
consciousness  involved  this  assumption,  a  view  concealed  here  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  possible  Kant  did  not  want  the  "percept  "  of  space,  to 
be  any  more  representative  of  real  space  than  sensations  were  of 
objects,  though  it  is  equally  possible  that  he  did  wish  to  admit  that  the 
space  "  percept "  was  more  or  less  representative. 

The  only  objection  that  can  be  brought  to  this  interpretation  of 
Kant,  and  most  readers  would  no  doubt  consider  this  as  fatal,  is  the 
fact  that  Kant  so  persistently  speaks  of  space  as  nothing  apart  from 
"  phenomena,"  as  I  have  already  remarked,  and  that  it  would  vanish 
if  it  were  not  for  the  "  subjective  "  conditions  of  sense.  This  concep- 
tion is  supported  by  his  view  that  space  "  perception"  may  not  hold 
for  other  forms  of  conscious  beings,  and  that  we  do  not  know  certainly 
whether  it  holds  good  for  animals,  but  only  that  it  is  valid  for  all  men. 
Such  views  seem  quite  clear,  though  one  may  ask  the  sceptical  ques- 
tion how  Kant  knows  that  all  men  have  an  "  intuition  "  which  he  so 
constantly  describes  as  "subjective"  when  the  same  term  is  used  to 
describe  sensations  which  he  explicitly  indicates  may  not  be  universal. 
The  most  emphatic  statements  on  his  doctrine  are  in  the  section  on 
"  Transcendental  Idealism  as  the  Key  to  the  Solution  of  Cosmological 
Dialectics,"  where  it  would  seem  that  the  pure  subjectivity  of  space 
was  affirmed  and  its  objectivity  wholly  denied.  But  in  this  very  dis- 
cussion he  uses  language  that  is  flatly  contradictory  unless  we  explain 
it  on  the  assumption  of  the  interpretation  which  I  have  proposed.  He 
first  speaks  of  all  "phenomena  as  modifications  of  sense"  and  then 
disputes  the  right  of  any  one  to  identify  this  conception  with  that  of 
dreams.  In  reply  to  such  an  interpretation  of  his  view  he  then  says 
that  his  doctrine  of  transcendental  idealism  permits  "  that  the  objects 
of  external  intuition,  just  as  they  are  perceived  in  space,  are  also  real, 
and  that  all  changes  in  time,  just  as  presented  in  the  internal  sense,  are 
real.  For  as  space  is  the  form  of  that  intuition  which  we  call  external 
and  as  no  empirical  conception  can  occur  without  objects  in  it,  so  we 
must  suppose  extended  realities  as  real  in  it,  and  so  also  with  time." 
Then  immediately  in  the  face  of  this  he  says  :  "  This  space  and  time, 
and  together  with  them  all   phenomena  are  not  things  in  themselves, 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  307 

but  nothing  except  presentations  and  have  no  existence  outside  our 
minds."  These  statements  are  either  contradictory  or  they  are  intel- 
ligible only  on  the  assumption  that  it  is  the  presentations  that  are  sub- 
jective while  the  "  real  "  is  objective,  whether  represented  by  the  sub- 
jective or  not.  As  evidence  of  this,  on  the  very  next  page  Kant  says 
that  "the  non-sensible  cause  of  these  presentations  is  totally  unknown  " 
(Die  nichtsinnliche  Ursache  dieser  Vorstellungen  ist  uns  ganzlich 
unbekannt).  Here  we  have  his  two  "  Dinge  an  sich"  in  one,  its 
objective  existence  admitted,  and  its  relation  to  "  perception"  asserted. 
It  is  evident  that  Kant's  real  conception  of  the  case  is  simply  that  our 
"experience"  or  sense  presentations  are  regarded  as  objectively 
caused,  efficiently  not  materially,  but  are  materially  what  the  subject 
makes  them,  just  as  the  Leibnitzian  point  of  view  would  consider  them. 
Whether  they  represent  reality  as  it  is  will  depend  on  the  view  we  take 
either  of  the  process  of  "  perception"  or  of  the  nature  of  the  subject. 
If  the  subject  is  sufficiently  like  the  object  to  act  in  the  same  way  the 
presentation  may  represent  the  object  rightly.  If  it  is  not  like  it  the 
presentation  may  not  represent  the  object,  and  to  secure  the  proper 
"knowledge"  of  the  object  as  it  is,  we  should  have  to  endow  "per- 
ception "  with  the  function  of  seeing  facts  as  they  are  without  reference 
to  the  mode  of  its  initiation  or  the  question  as  to  the  nature  of  sensa- 
tion, thus  distinguishing  between  sensation  and  "perception"  in  this 
way.  Unless  Kant  does  mean  this  in  some  way,  it  is  perfectly  absurd 
for  him  to  speak  of  "  objects  "  (Gegenstande)  affecting  sense  when 
he  is  as  constantly  repeating  that  "  objects  "  are  the  affection  or  modi- 
fication itself.  He  either  assumes  what  I  state  of  his  real  position  or 
he  does  not  know  what  he  is  talking  about  in  this  free  use  of  equivo- 
cations. What  Kant  ought  to  have  seen  clearly,  and  to  have  admitted 
as  frankly,  was  that  he  either  could  not  use  the  language  of  subjectivity 
about  space  at  all  or  had  to  give  up  the  distinction  between  space 
"perception"  and  the  phenomena  of  dreams  and  hallucinations,  a 
distinction  which  he  insisted  on  retaining  and  gave  no  reason  whatever 
for  it.  If  he  had  remained  on  the  premises  of  the  Leibnitzian  philos- 
ophy he  could  well  have  insisted  on  pure  subjectivity  of  everything 
without  supposing  any  objectivity  whatever.  But  having  returned  to 
the  position  that  sensations  were  caused  from  the  external  world  he 
should  have  seen  that  his  subjectivity  implied  objectivity  of  some  kind, 
and  indeed  he  did  see  it,  but  did  not  use  the  fact  as  he  should  have 
done.  We  have  found  in  later  knowledge  that  even  illusions,  halluci- 
nations, and  dreams  have  their  objective  import,  being  the  resultant  or 
effect  of  secondary  stimuli  and  differing  from  normal  sensations  only 


3oS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  their  non-coordination  with  the  usual  and  normal  cause.  With  us 
subjectivity  always  implies  some  objectivity,  even  though  it  be  non- 
presentative  of  it. 

The  real  crux  of  the  case  lies  in  Kant's  point  de  repere  for  employ- 
ing this  language  of  subjectivity  at  all  in  relation  to  space.  It  was  his 
peculiar  conception  of  "Ding  an  sich "  which  involved  the  double 
absurdity  (i)  of  transcending  all  "known"  reality  and  yet  deserving 
a  place  in  the  theory  of  "  knowledge,"  and  (2)  of  limiting  "  knowl- 
edge" to  "experience"  while  reality  or  the  "Ding  an  sich"  was 
the  cause  of  that  "experience."  That  is,  if  all  that  is  "known" 
is  sensible  and  the  categories  have  no  objective  application  he 
can  neither  assert  the  "unknown  things  in  themselves"  nor  sup- 
pose them  the  cause  of  sensation.  What  Kant  should  have  seen 
and  emphasized  was  that  it  is  one  thing  to  sensibly  "know" 
a  fact  and  it  is  another  to  cognitively  "know"  it.  This  distinc- 
tion was  implied  in  his  reference  to  the  "thing  in  itself"  as  the 
cause  of  sensible  "  experience,"  and  was  apparently  implied  in  his 
doctrine  of  the  categories,  especially  that  of  causation.  But  as  his 
causality  was  nothing  but  coexistence  and  sequence  made  necessary,  not 
efficient,  in  everything  but  the  production  of  sensation,  and  hence  noth- 
ing but  the  systematization  of  "  experience,"  all  his  grounds  for  objec- 
tivity of  any  sort  were  baseless,  though  it  is  clear  that  he  asserted  the 
fact  of  it.  One  of  his  main  difficulties  was  his  abstract  limitation  of 
sense  and  understanding.  He  spoke  of  them  as  if  they  were  separate 
functions,  and  having  assumed  that  sense  handed  its  data  over  to  judg- 
ment for  systematization  he  forgot  to  note  that,  in  addition  to  synthe- 
tizing  "experience"  the  judgment  explained  it  by  the  category  of 
causality,  and  thus  used  the  principle  of  objectivity  to  make  sense  and 
the  subjective  rational.  If  then  we  find  that  we  can  reduce  the  ideal- 
ist to  the  dilemma  between  solipsism  and  the  admission  of  some  ex- 
ternality and  show  that  Kant  is  in  agreement  with  that  realism  which 
asserts  objective  reality  without  assuming  that  its  "nature"  is  presen- 
tatively  given  in  sensory  states,  we  have  a  position  in  which  Kant's 
"  Anschauung"  as  a  purely  subjective  act,  not  directly  stimulated  from 
without  by  space  because  it  is  not  a  "  property  "  of  matter  but  only  a 
static  condition  of  it,  can  have  the  meaning  which  should  be  given  to 
all  "  intuition"  of  whatever  origin  or  nature  in  his  system,  namely  an 
objective,  though  possibly  not  presentative  or  representative,  import, 
whether  that  meaning  be  given  by  direct  "  perception "  or  only  by 
causal  implication  involving  the  immanency  of  judgment  in  sense  ex- 
perience, explaining  it  as  well  as  synthetizing  different  experiences. 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  309 

Let  me  summarize  Kant's  doctrine.  I  have  shown  that  he  fluctu- 
ates between  the  "  things  in  themselves  "  of  the  ontologists,  which  by 
his  own  definition  of  them  must  be  wholly  unrelated  to  "  knowledge," 
and  the  "  real  "  of  the  epistemologists  who  suppose  a  causal  relation 
between  reality  and  consciousness,  but  a  relation  that  was  not  the 
transmission  of  the  "  nature"  of  objects  into  consciousness,  not  a  pres- 
entation of  matter  by  material  causes,  but  an  efficient  or  occasional 
cause  of  the  sensations  without  constituting  them.  That  is,  Kant 
fluctuated,  in  his  conception  of  "  things  in  themselves,"  between  a 
property/less  reality  which  is  absolutely  "  unknown,"  and  a  causal 
reality  which  was  relatively  "  known."  But  as  there  is  perhaps  gen- 
eral agreement  that  the  former  conception  is  useless,  the  existence  of 
the  latter  makes  Kant  a  realist  in  regard  to  the  fact  of  external  or 
objective  existence  not  presented  in  consciousness,  and  an  idealist  in 
regard  to  the  nature  of  sensation  and  at  least  the  origin  of  space 
"  perception."  The  only  question  that  remains  is  whether  he  con- 
ceived space  as  externally  real  in  some  sense  as  other  than  a  mere  mode 
of  consciousness.  The  distinction  that  he  insisted  upon  between  sen- 
sation (Empfindung)  and  "  intuition"  (Anschauung)  and  the  statement 
that  space  was  objective  while  sensation  was  only  subjective  would 
make  it  a  consistent  supposition  that  this  "  intuition"  could  represent 
a  content  that  might  be  either  presentative  or  non-presentative,  accord- 
ing as  the  facts  required  us  to  believe.  If  consciousness  could  assert 
the  existence  of  "  things  in  themselves  "  which  were  "  unknown"  and 
spaceless,  there  should  be  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  "  intuition" 
could  give  a  reality  which  had  no  causal  relation  to  the  subject  but 
which  was  incited  on  the  occasion  of  sensation.  The  fact  that  "  intui- 
tion "  was  another  function  than  mere  sensation  permits  the  supposition 
that  its  capacity  extends  to  the  seeing  objects  that  are  not  presented  in 
the  sensation.  This  is  to  say,  that  it  may  be  of  the  very  nature  of 
*'  perception  "  to  intuit  or  to  assert  something  not  consciousness  and 
not  in  consciousness  in  any  other  sense  than  that  it  is  an  object  of  it 
and,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  "  outside"  it.  The  reality  may 
be  presentative  or  non-presentative,  just  as  we  please,  the  main  thing 
being  that  all  objectivity  is  meaningless  unless  one  or  the  other  is  con- 
ceded, and  it  is  within  the  Kantian  system  to  make  it  objective  in  one 
sense. 

With  this  outcome  of  the  development  of  the  problem  of  "  percep- 
tion "  as  a  process  and  especially  in  connection  with  the  idea  of  space, 
let  us  see  how  the  phenomena  of  binocular  vision  affect  both  the  Berke- 
leian  and  the  Kantian  doctrines.     There  are  just  two  things  to  discuss 


310  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  the  problem.      There  are  (i)  the  question  of  the  nativity  and  (2) 
the  question  of  the  ideality  of  space  "  perception." 

I  shall  confine  the  discussion  of  the  first  of  these  questions  to  the 
problem  of  solidity  or  the  third  dimension  in  the  field  of  vision.  I 
shall  assume  for  the  present  and  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  plane 
dimension  is  "  in"  the  retinal  image  and  that  the  fact  guarantees  the 
nativity  of  space  "perception"  for  that  dimension.  I  shall  also  as- 
sume for  the  sake  of  argument  that  the  absence  of  the  third  dimension 
from  the  image  creates  a  perplexity  in  the  problem  of  "perceiving" 
it.  It  was  all  very  easy  and  plausible  for  Berkeley  and  his  followers 
to  try  to  explain  this  "  perception"  of  the  third  dimension  in  vision  by 
association  of  tactual  and  muscular  experiences  with  certain  signs  in 
vision,  since  they  assumed  the  necessity  of  the  presence  in  the  image 
or  "  impression"  of  the  quale  to  be  naturally  seen,  if  its  "  perception" 
was  to  be  supposed  a  native  function  of  that  sense.  But  they  were 
ignorant  of  important  optical  facts  which  indicate  an  agency  for  seeing 
what  is  not  presented  in  the  image.  Brewster's  and  Wheatstone's 
work  in  binocular  vision,  showing  that  the  "  perception"  of  the  third 
dimension  was  connected  with  the  existence  of  disparate  images  on  the 
different  retinas,  suggested  the  existence  of  an  organism  for  the  native 
"perception"  of  distance  which  Berkeley  did  not  suspect,  all  this 
work  having  been  done  after  his  time  and  also  after  that  of  Kant,  who 
seems  not  even  to  have  been  aware  of  the  possible  significance  of 
Berkeley's  theory  of  vision  for  his  own  views.  We  know  that  the 
work  of  Brewster  led  to  the  invention  of  the  stereoscope  and  that  this 
instrument  was  designed  to  illustrate  precisely  this  organism  for  the 
"  perception"  of  solidity  where  it  was  actually  not  in  the  "  object." 
The  same  effect  can  be  produced  by  the  artificial  combination  of  retinal 
images  in  the  use  of  the  naked  eyes.  Such  experiments  represent  the 
drawing  of  figures  of  the  same  character  except  with  that  degree  of  dis- 
parateness which  would  be  true  of  images  from  solid  objects  in  normal 
vision  and  the  fusion  of  their  retinal  images  by  crossing  of  the  eyes  or 
artificial  convergence.  The  effect  is  in  general  the  same  as  with  the 
stereoscope,  except  that  the  perspective  by  artificial  convergence  and 
fusion  is  the  reverse  of  that  by  the  ordinary  stereoscope.  But  in  both  we 
observe  the  "  perception  "  of  the  third  dimension  when  it  is  not  in  the 
object  and  when  it  is  not  in  the  image.  I  cannot  reproduce  all  the 
facts  and  experimental  illustrations  showing  this  result  and  so  must 
refer  the  reader  to  the  experiments  themselves.1 

1  Mind,  Vol.  XIII.,  pp.  499-526  ;  Vol.  XIV.,  pp.  393~401  i  Vo1-  XVI.,  pp.  54- 
79.     Psychological  Review,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  257-273,  581-601  ;  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  142-163, 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  311 

The  experiments  recorded  and  described  in  these  references  exhibit 
the  fact  that  geometric  figures  can  be  so  drawn  as  to  produce  binocular 
parallax  similar  to  that  of  solid  objects  in  the  retinal  image  and  that 
the  effect  on  the  "  perception"  of  distance  or  solidity  is  the  same  as  in 
solid  bodies.  The  simplest  illustration  is  that  of  two  oblique  lines 
drawn  sufficiently  far  apart  and  more  or  less  in  vertical  directions  so 
that  either  artificial  or  stereoscopic  fusion  is  possible.  Their  obliquity 
must  be  slight  so  that,  when  the  fusion  of  one  end  with  the  same  end 
of  the  other  is  effected  the  remaining  points  in  the  lines  will  be  near 
enough  corresponding  points  lying  in  the  median  plane  to  stimulate  a 
tendency  to  their  fusion.  This  will  bring  out  the  appearance  of  a  line, 
lying  not  in  a  plane  horizontal  to  that  of  the  retina,  but  in  a  plane  cutting 
this,  the  fused  single  line  appearing  to  lie  in  the  third  dimension,  with 
one  point  nearer  and  the  other  farther  from  the  observer.  The  same  effect 
can  be  produced  by  concentric  circles  except  that  it  is  a  little  more  com- 
plex, the  result  being  a  frustum  of  a  cone.  The  circles  must  be  drawn 
in  two  sets  each  of  two  or  more  circles  not  having  the  same  center 
and  drawn  symmetrically  so  that  stereoscopic  or  artificial  fusion  will 
show  the  parallax  necessary  to  elicit  the  "perception"  of  solidity. 
Now  it  is  noticeable  that  fusion  by  convergence  of  the  eyes  on  a  focal 
point  between  the  circles  and  the  eyes  results  in  a  frustum  of  a  cone 
with  the  larger  and  smaller  base  in  one  relation  while  fusion  by  focal 
convergence  beyond  the  plane  of  the  circles  reverses  this  perspective 
or  relation  of  the  bases,  showing  that  the  act  is  an  organic  one  and  not 
associational.  These  figures  can  be  varied  in  many  ways  and  forms 
with  the  same  general  results  in  regard  to  the  third  dimension,  but 
they  are  all  simple  variations  of  stereoscopic  vision  which  can  be  tried 
by  any  one  with  greater  ease  than  artificial  convergence.  A  more 
striking  incident  is  that  of  localization  with  reference  to  the  point  of 
fixation  in  attention  rather  than  the  point  of  physiological  convergence. 
If  two  circles  are  drawn  for  stereoscopic  purposes  and  then  fused  by 
artificial  convergence  they  will,  as  we  know,  appear  to  be  a  single 
circle.  If  a  pencil  point  be  placed  at  the  focal  point  of  vision  it  will 
appear  to  be  located  in  the  same  plane.  But  if  placed  beyond  the 
focal  point  it  will  appear  double,  and  if  attention  is  now  concentrated 
on  these  double  images  it  is  noticeable  that  the  circle  which  before  ap- 
peared at  the  focal  point  now  will  appear  to  be  located  beyond  the 
pencil  point  and  on  the  plane  of  the  paper  on  which  the  real  circles 

37S-389-  Leconte,  "  Sight."  See  list  of  Literature  in  Helmholtz's  "  Physiolo- 
gische  O^tit,"  II.  edition,  pp.  1282-1295.  Also  the  work  of  Hering,  Aubert, 
Wundt,  Stumpf,  Lipps  and  Martius. 


312  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

are  drawn.  If  then  the  attention  be  returned  to  the  circles  and  with- 
drawn from  the  pencil  points  the  latter  again  appear  beyond  the  circle 
and  this  at  the  focal  point  again.  Here  we  have  a  condition  in  which 
the  position  of  an  object  in  the  third  dimension  is  determined  by  the 
variations  of  attention  without  any  muscular  or  motor  variation  of  the 
eyes.  In  all  there  is  evidently  an  organic  function  for  "  perceiving  " 
the  third  dimension.  Wheatstone  showed  with  sufficient  conclusive- 
ness that  the  "perception"  of  solidity  was  accompanied  by  the  exis- 
tence of  disparate  images  from  solid  objects  and  these  diagrammatic 
experiments  just  described,  show  the  same  fact  under  conditions  favor- 
able to  the  proof  of  the  influence  of  this  disparateness  and  with  varia- 
tions that  indicate  a  native  function  for  the  "  perception"  of  solidity, 
a  function  at  least  apparently  distinct  from  every  form  of  association 
and  inference.  Whether  it  is  properly  so  or  not  I  shall  examine  pres- 
ently. But  what  I  wish  to  note  first  is  the  fact  that  this  solidity  is  not 
present  in  the  image  on  the  retina.  We  may  say  that  it  is  represented 
there  by  the  binocular  parallax  or  disparate  images.  This  is  true  that 
there  is  something  in  binocular  images  different  from  the  merely 
monocular,  but  this  difference  is  not  identical  with  the  difference  be- 
tween plane  and  solid  dimension  though  it  elicits  the  latter  in  "per- 
ception." The  difference  is  purely  a  matter  of  parallax  in  plane 
dimension  or  magnitude,  while  the  "  perceived"  quale  is  the  third  di- 
mension. In  such  cases  we  undoubtedly  see  what  is  not  in  the  "  im- 
pression." That  is,  there  is  no  presentative  correspondence  between 
the  "  sensation"  and  the  quality  seen.  The  nativity  of  it  is  apparent 
in  the  uniform  fixity  of  the  "  phenomena"  and  such  variations  as  ex- 
hibit that  uniformity  in  accordance  with  the  alteration  of  conditions 
and  not  an  alteration  of  effects  with  the  same  conditions.  That  is,  the 
relation  of  localization  and  perspective  are  determined  by  the  nature  of 
the  parallax  and  not  by  inferential  considerations.  Association  and 
inference  ought  to  make  the  result  variable  and  capricious  under  the 
same  conditions.  That  is,  if  association  and  inference  be  the  source 
of  the  third  dimension  in  such  cases  the  perspective  of  solidity  ought 
to  involve  localization  as  alterable  as  it  is  in  monocular  vision  where 
geometrical  figures,  on  account  of  mathematical  perspective,  and  pic- 
tures, on  account  of  light  and  shade,  as  well  as  mathematical  perspec- 
tive, can  have  their  form  and  apparent  solidity  seen  very  much  as  we 
please.  Take  the  case  of  the  geometrical  cube  as  an  illustration.  We 
can  see  the  cube  in  more  than  one  position,  if  we  think  of  the  way  we 
wish  to  see  it.  Also  geometrical  figures  representing  a  tube  or  tunnel, 
which  can  be  made   to   appear  with  the  small   end  nearer  or  farther 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  313 

from  us,  according  as  we  wish  to  see  it,  the  perspective  being  infer- 
entially  or  associationally  interpretable  as  we  please  to  see  the  repre- 
sentation. But  this  "  phenomenon  "  does  not  occur  in  the  experiments 
of  binocular  fusion  of  disparate  images.  The  organic  character  of  it 
and  the  variation  of  solidity  according  to  the  laws  of  fusion  and  the 
nature  of  the  parallax  show  that  it  is  natural  and  not  associational 
either  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  given  or  with  the  data  of  other 
senses.  I  do  not  care  what  may  be  said  of  its  evolution.  Anything 
may  be  granted  in  this  field.  I  am  concerned  only  with  what  it  is 
now  in  the  experience  of  the  human  race.  This  is  simply  that  there  is 
an  organic  function  in  vision  for  the  "  perception"  of  the  third  dimen- 
sion without  having  it  presented  in  the  retinal  image  as  a  tri-dimen- 
sional  quale  but  only  as  parallax  in  plane  dimension. 

I  must  call  attention  to  an  interesting  difference  between  the  experi- 
ments with  geometrical  figures  and  the  facts  of  "  perception"  in  nor- 
mal cases  of  solid  objects.  In  normal  binocular  vision  there  are  two 
facts  to  be  observed  in  regard  to  the  "  impression."  One  of  them  is 
the  fact  of  parallax  and  the  other  a  factor  not  involving  purely  geomet- 
rical considerations.  In  geometrical  figures  there  is  nothing  but  simple 
parallax.  In  the  case  of  solid  objects  this  parallax  is  accompanied  by 
some  slight  difference,  insensibly  slight  of  course,  of  intensity  in  the 
light,  relative  or  absolute,  and  also  mathematical  perspective,  as  com- 
pared with  the  common  part  of  the  images.  This  might  be  said  to  be 
an  important  factor  in  the  clearness  of  the  third  dimension  in  normal 
visual  "  perception."  While  I  admit  that  it  may  affect  the  result,  at 
least  unconsciously,  either  by  association  or  in  the  "perceptive"  act, 
it  is  evidently  not  the  decisive  factor  in  the  case,  because  in  the  experi- 
ments with  geometrical  figures  this  difference  of  intensity  of  the  light 
and  mathematical  perspective  are  absent  while  the  "  perception  "  of 
solidity  is  either  quite  as  clear  as  in  the  normal  vision  of  solid  objects 
or  exhibits  its  entire  independence  of  those  associational  influences. 
That  is  to  say,  the  "  perception  "  of  the  third  dimension  is  apparently 
not  affected  by  any  circumstances  but  that  of  mathematical  disparate- 
ness and  parallax,  so  that  inferential  factors,  supposedly  associated 
with  variations  of  intensity  and  mathematical  perspective,  are  either 
excluded  from  view  or  are  merely  secondary  concomitants  and  sup- 
plementary efficients  in  the  result,  the  primary  being  binocular  paral- 
lax. In  the  experiments,  therefore,  with  geometrical  figures  we  have 
the  clearest  evidence,  against  the  claim  of  Berkeley,  of  the  nativity  of 
the  "  perception"  of  distance  without  the  presence  of  that  quale  in  the 
image  or  "  impression." 


3H  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  associational  theory  is  easily  disposed  of  by  the  remark  that 
there  is  no  reason  for  denying  that  tactual  and  muscular  space  become 
associated  with  the  visual  quale  which  I  have  been  discussing.  Ex- 
perience shows  us  in  each  sense  certain  indications  of  qualities  in  the 
cause  which  another  sense  gives  directly.  But  this  associability  of 
certain  facts  in  touch  and  muscular  experience  with  the  visual  does  not 
involve  any  identification  of  them  with  the  visual  in  the  Berkeleian 
sense  that  the  tactual  is  transferred  to  vision  by  suggestion.  What  I 
am  discussing  is  the  visual  quale  seen  directly  and  not  its  inferred  or 
associated  correlate  in  experience  foreign  to  sight  and  which  indicates 
the  presence  in  the  object  of  precisely  that  quale  which  sight  sees. 
We  may  very  well  discover  by  experience  that  a  certain  visual  fact  is 
associable  with  a  certain  tactual  or  muscular  fact,  or  indicative  of  its 
presence  in  the  object,  and  yet  not  identical  with  it  as  a  presentative 
"  percept,"  though  we  call  it  a  space  content  in  both  senses.  But  this 
does  not  exclude  the  nativity  of  the  datum  in  each  case  while  it  admits 
that  their  synthesis  is  a  product  of  experience.  Hence  I  deny  the 
associational  theory  by  admitting  it,  so  to  speak,  while  refusing  to 
accept  its  relevance  to  the  problem  before  us,  which  is  not  whether  the 
visual  quale  has  no  tactual  or  muscular  correlate,  but  whether  there  is 
not  a  visual  "  percept"  that  may  be  called  the  third  dimension  in  that 
sense,  whether  interpretable  or  not  in  the  equivalents  of  other  types  of 
that  experience.  The  visual  quale  has  its  correlate  in  tactual  and 
muscular  phenomena,  but  it  is  not  constituted  by  it.  The  reason  is 
that  vision  is  our  anticipatory  and  touch  our  protective  sense,  so  to 
speak.  Vision  anticipates  tactual  experience  and  tactual  experience  is 
the  test  of  what  is  and  what  is  not  safe.  This  fact  always  makes  it 
necessary  to  interpret  our  visual  experience  in  tactual  correlates  as  a 
means  of  regulating  our  volitional  actions  and  adjustments.  But  this 
utilitarian  consideration  in  the  process  of  development  does  not  inter- 
fere with  the  nativity  of  the  visual  space  quale  any  more  than  the 
associability  of  a  taste  with  a  color  proves  the  empirical  character  of 
the  latter.  The  question  is  whether  there  is  a  quale  in  sight  which 
can  be  called  space  as  well  as  one  in  touch  to  be  called  by  the  same 
name  because  it  has  the  same  meaning  for  action  in  both,  and  also 
whether  it  represents  in  the  "  impression"  what  is  actually  seen. 

The  same  general  conclusion  can  be  shown  in  plane  dimension  for 
the  sense  of  vision.  We  have  assumed  that  plane  dimension  is  given 
in  the  retinal  image  and  that  this  might  be  the  reason  for  its  native 
"  perception,"  but  while  we  cannot  escape  the  supposition  that  this 
datum  is  present  there,  in  the  sense  that  the  conditions  on  the  retina 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  315 

are  the  same  as  external  to  it,  yet  there  are  two  facts  which  must  be 
considered  in  modification  of  the  common  idea  of  the  case.  First,  the 
condition  on  the  retina  is  not  that  of  an  image  as  it  would  be  seen  by 
another  eye,  in  so  far  as  we  know  about  the  matter.  We  suppose  this 
only  from  our  visual  construction  of  what  we  see  in  the  camera  ob- 
scura  where  we  are  dealing  with  purely  objective  conditions.  If,  too, 
we  could  look  at  the  retina  from  behind  the  scenes,  as  we  can  in  the 
case  of  an  eye  taken  from  an  animal,  we  might  see  an  image.  But 
this  is  no  indication  that  the  u  impression  "  represents  plane  dimen- 
sion. All  of  plane  dimension  involved  is  in  the  dimension  of  the 
retina  affected  and  not  in  the  conditions  that  evoke  the  "  perception  " 
of  magnitude.  The  second  consideration  is  an  experimental  one  of 
some  interest.  It  is  the  variation  of  apparent  magnitude  without  a 
corresponding  variation  of  the  retinal  image.  I  have  also  described 
this  in  the  papers  to  which  I  have  referred  above  (p.  310).  The  phe- 
nomenon represents  the  variation  of  magnitude  of  the  frustum  of  a 
cone  according  to  the  focalization  of  the  eyes  and  without  any  real 
alteration  of  the  retinal  "impression."  If  the  eyes  are  focussed  at  a 
point  within  the  plane  on  which  the  figures  lie  the  bases  of  the  fused 
figures  appear  smaller  than  the  real  circles,  and  if  focussed  beyond  that 
plane  they  appear  larger.  Any  stereoscopic  figures  will  exhibit  this 
effect.  The  image  on  the  retina  is  such  cases  is  not  altered  in  its  mag- 
nitude and  conditions,  and  yet  the  visual  magnitude  of  the  object  is 
modified,  so  that  even  plane  dimension  is  subject  to  subjective  influ- 
ences precisely  as  much  as  the  third  dimension.  That  is  to  say,  there 
is  even  in  plane  dimension  a  disparity  between  what  is  seen  and  what 
is  in  the  "  impression,"  thus  confirming  the  general  theory  that  "  per- 
ception "  does  not  require  to  have  its  quale  in  sensation  in  order  to 
become  aware  of  it. 

If  "experience,"  association,  and  "motor"  phenomena  are  to  be 
entitled  to  any  consideration  in  the  case,  so  far  as  my  conception  of 
the  problem  is  concerned,  they  must  be  confined  to  the  sense  of  vision 
whose  data  alone  I  am  discussing,  and  simply  for  the  reason  that  an 
associable  tactual  and  muscular  correlate  is  admitted  in  the  case  but 
refused  the  right  to  be  considered  the  phenomenon  in  which  we  are 
interested.  It  is  clear  that  within  the  sense  of  vision  association  does 
not  determine  the  result  or  anything  in  it,  except  the  possibility  of  a 
tactual  equivalent  associable  with  it,  and  this  association  is  irrelevant 
when  true.  That  distance  in  vision  is  a  "motor"  phenomenon  in 
vision  does  not  alter  the  contention  here  made,  namely,  that  the  "per- 
ceived" quale  is  not,  as  "perceived,"  a  part  of  the  retinal  "  impres- 


316  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sion."  We  may  interpret  "  motor  "  phenomena  any  way  we  please. 
I  am  not  concerned  with  the  so-called  theory  of  "  motor  "  phenomena 
in  the  explanation  of  space  "  perception."  The  position  that  there  is  a 
visual  quale  for  the  third  dimension  is  wholly  independent  of  that 
controversy.  On  any  conception  of  "motor"  sensations,  whether 
they  are  merely  sensory  facts  involving  the  consciousness  of  motion  or 
not,  whether  the  function  of  "motor"  centers  is  distinguished  from 
that  of  sensory  centers  or  not,  the  quale  "perceived"  as  a  result  of 
binocular  parallax  or  as  a  result  of  variations  of  fixation,  is  not  pre- 
sented in  the  image,  and  this  fact  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  visual 
"percept"  is  not  similar  to  the  datum  in  the  sensory  "  impression." 
"  Knowledge  "  transcends  sensation  and  extends  to  objects. 

This  conclusion  is  very  distinctly  confirmed  by  the  "phenomena" 
of  upright  vision,  and  in  a  manner  which  absolutely  prohibits  the  in- 
fluence of  association  with  tactual  and  muscular  experience.  We 
know  that  the  retinal  image  is  inverted  and  that  nevertheless  objects 
are  seen  in  their  proper  position  and  relations.  I  shall  not  repeat  here 
the  evidence  of  this  assertion,  but  shall  simply  refer  the  reader  to  the 
proper  sources.1  We  find  in  experiment  that  the  line  of  reference  for 
the  localization  of  points  in  objects  is  in  what  may  be  called  a  line  ver- 
tical to  the  plane  of  the  retina,  a  fact  that  overcomes  the  inversion  of  the 
image  in  refraction  of  the  rays  of  light.  Phosphenes  and  Purkinje's 
experiment  exhibits  this  law  very  clearly  and  conclusively.  It  is  appa- 
rent in  all  of  them,  whether  we  appeal  to  association  or  not,  an  appeal 
that  is  shown  to  be  false,  that  there  is  no  principle  of  vision  requiring 
"perception"  to  reproduce  the  relations  in  the  retina  in  its  judgment 
of  reality.  We  at  least  apparently  see  objects  as  they  are  without  any 
identity  between  the  image  and  the  reality.  Whether  we  see  objects 
as  they  are  or  not,  we  do  not  find  the  quale  seen  in  the  "  impression." 
The  act  of  "  perception  "  is  independent  of  this  condition,  even  though 
incited  by  it. 

It  would  thus  appear  that  we  can  state  a  general  conclusion  against 
Berkeley,  namely,  that  we  can  have  objects  of  consciousness  which 
are  not  iitn*'  sensation  and  so  not  "  in  "  consciousness  as  a  state  of 
the  organism.  Thus  "  perception  "  may  transcend  the  states  and  affec- 
tion of  the  sensorium.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  form  of  statement  to 
dispute  the  idealistic  theory  of  "  knowledge  "  which  may  still  contend 
that  the  cognitive  act  is  a  distinct  subjective  function  as  creative  of  its 
"object"'   as    sensation    is   a   subjective   reaction.       The  whole   doc- 

1  Le  Conte,  "  Sight,"  pp.  59-76,  II.  Edition.  Psychological  Review,  Vol.  IV., 
pp.  142-163. 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  317 

trine  of  idealism,  in  so  far  as  present  contention  is  concerned,  is 
indifferent  to  what  is  maintained  as  the  result  of  binocular  experiment. 
All  that  I  am  emphasizing  at  present  is  the  discrepancy  between  the 
retinal  or  sensorial  image  and  the  dimensional  quale  "  perceived." 
Assuming  what  we  know  of  optics  to  be  true  this  quale  is  not  in  the 
"  impression,"  though  "  perceived,"  and  though  the  whole  process  be 
"ideal"  or  subjective,  there  is  nevertheless  the  difference  between 
what  is  in  the  "impression"  on  the  sensorium  and  what  is  "per- 
ceived," a  fact  which  lends  at  least  apparent  support  to  the  dictum  that 
"perception"  transcends  the  subjective  in  its  determinations,  cer- 
tainly the  subjective  of  sensation. 

It  is  apparent  how  such  a  conclusion  affects  the  whole  doctrine  of 
"knowledge"  as  formulated  by  those  idealists  who  insist  upon  ex- 
pressing themselves  in  language  at  least  apparently  implying  that  we 
cannot  "know"  anything  other  than  our  mental  states,  with  a  ten- 
dency to  limit  it  to  sensations  and  their  systematization.  Whatever  it 
means  it  is  certain  that  we  can  express  the  phenomena  of  vision  which 
are  under  discussion  only  in  language  implying  that  we  see  what  is 
not  "  in"  the  "  impression"  or  sensory  consciousness  as  sensation  is 
usually  called.  Apparently  the  doctrine  of  realism  is  the  only  one 
that  consists  with  this  view. 

But  the  idealist  can  put  in  a  most  interesting  reply  at  this  point. 
He  can  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  very  discrepancy  between 
the  "  impression "  and  the  "percept"  is  evidence  that  the  quale  is 
purely  a  mental  construction.  The  "phenomena"  and  experiments 
that  have  been  under  consideration  may  be  quoted  as  proving  this  fact 
and  as  showing  the  correctness  of  what  is  taken  for  Kant's  doctrine  of 
idealism  while  showing  the  incorrectness  of  Berkeley's  view  of  the 
case  at  least  in  the  assumption  with  which  he  conducted  the  argument. 
Thus  while  it  is  clear  that  the  quale  "perceived"  is  not,  as  such,  in 
the  "  impression,"  the  geometric  figures  chosen  to  bring  this  fact  into 
clear  relief  also  show  that  the  quale  "  perceived"  is  not  in  the  object. 
Plane  figures  are  seen  as  solids,  and  lines  in  plane  dimension  are  seen 
in  the  third  dimension.  That  is,  the  "  percept  "  is  neither  in  the  "  im- 
pression" nor  /b  the  "object."  Thus  it  would  seem  that  the  mind 
supplies  the  quale  which  is  in  neither  the  sensation  nor  the  object, 
and  consequently  we  should  seem  to  have  proved  idealism  instead  of 
realism.  The  space  quale  seems  to  be  a  construction  of  the  mind  pure 
and  simple,  whether  treated  as  a  priori  ox  empirical. 

It  is  not  easy  to  refute  such  a  claim,  and  at  least  in  so  far  as  mere 
subjectivity  of  action  is  concerned,  I  am  not  interested  in  disputing  it. 


318  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  the  "  ideality"  of  space,  in  the  same  sense 
in  which  the  "  ideality"  of  all  mental  states  must  be  admitted,  and  if 
the  facts  force  me  to  it,  will  admit  it  in  any  sense  whatever,  and  so 
accept  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  doctrine  of  Kant.  But  I  must  con- 
tend for  the  possibility  that  this  subjectivity  of  space  "perception" 
may  consist  with  its  objectivity  in  either  the  presentative  or  non-pre- 
sentative  sense.  The  "perception"  of  it,  however,  when  it  is  demon- 
strably not  in  the  object  would  seem  to  show  either  that  it  could  not  be 
presentative  or  that  its  objective  existence  would  have  to  be  made  con- 
sistent with  the  denial  of  it  as  any  quality  or  predicate  of  matter. 
Binocular  parallax  undoubtedly  gives  rise  to  the  mental  construction 
or  "perception"  of  the  third  dimension,  and  shows,  apparently  at 
least,  that  space  "perception"  is  a  synthetic  function  of  sense  and  not 
necessarily  identified  with  it  in  all  its  forms  and  conditions,  but  there  is 
nothing  in  this  fact  to  prevent  the  supposition  that  the  construction  cor- 
rectly represents  an  objective  fact,  especially  when  it  is  conceded  that 
the  quale  is  not  necessarily  a  predicate  of  the  object  which  stimulates 
the  sensory  state,  as  there  will  be  no  necessity  for  making  its  objectivity 
depend  upon  the  consideration  that  it  be  such  a  "  property."  That  is 
to  say,  the  ideal  construction  may  have  an  objective  meaning,  though 
it  has  a  purely  subjective  genesis  not  in  the  "impression"  and  repre- 
sents a  reality  neither  in  the  sensation  nor  a  property  of  the  object 
necessarily.  The  only  thing  that  the  psychologist  would  have  to  do 
is  to  show  that  there  is  evidence  of  that  fact.  Transcendency  of  any 
sort  having  once  been  established,  and  transcendency  of  sensation  is 
established  in  space  "  perception,"  even  though  it  be  nothing  more 
than  a  synthetic  function  associated  with  sense,  these  limits  must  be 
defined  before  we  can  dogmatically  assert  that  "  perception"  is  char- 
acterized by  the  same  subjective  meaning  as  sensation,  and  if  they  are 
not  equally  defined,  it  is  only  a  question  of  evidence  to  determine 
whether  its  meaning  does  not  extend  beyond  the  subjectivity  of  sensa- 
tions. That  is,  may  it  not  be  possible  that  the  mind  is  adapted  to  con- 
struct a  quale  which  represents  the  actual  facts,  or  some  actually 
objective  facts,  in  the  external  world,  though  these  facts  are  not  pre- 
sented in  the  "  impression"  and  are  not  "properties"  of  matter  sen- 
sible or  supersensible? 

The  first  thing  to  be  noticed  in  reply  to  such  a  question  is  the  fact 
that  the  binocular  experiments  described  and  discussed  represent  a 
somewhat  abnormal  condition  of  vision,  resembling  in  many  respects 
the  "  perception  "  of  objects  through  colored  glasses.  The  fact  that 
colored  glass  alters  the  appearance  of  things  does  not  interfere  with 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  319 


their  objectivity  nor  with  the  objectivity  of  their  color  as  normally 
seen.  It  only  alters  the  conditions  under  which  they  can  be  seen  at 
all.  I  grant  that  such  phenomena  suggest  important  questions,  but 
they  do  not  eliminate  objectivity  even  of  the  qualities  that  are  thus  dis- 
torted. The  very  fact  that  space  "  perception"  is  an  additional  func- 
tion to  that  of  sensation  and  may  vary  in  its  "  percept,"  while  that  of 
color,  sound,  taste,  etc.,  may  remain  constant,  shows  how  the  actual 
relations  of  objects  may  be  distorted,  as  in  a  mirror,  without  denying 
their  normal  relation  to  "perception."  If  space  were  not  possibly  a 
variant  with  a  sensational  content,  it  would  be  otherwise,  and  to  those 
who  treat  space  as  a  "  property"  of  matter  the  argument  for  its  ideal- 
ity might  appear  more  cogent  in  such  facts  as  I  have  mentioned  in 
binocular  vision.  But  the  very  fact  that  it  is  a  synthetic  function 
superadded  to  sensation  only  makes  it  possible  for  illusions  to  arise  in 
this  "  percept"  when  there  are  none  in  sensations. 

A  further  fact  is  of  much  importance  in  this  connection.  We 
should  have  solipsism  to  face,  as  I  have  already  shown,  if  we  made 
sensation,  space  and  "  objects  "  purely  subjective.  Now  Berkeley  and 
Kant  admitted  the  existence  of  "objective"  facts  of  some  sort. 
Berkeley  denied  the  existence  of  "matter"  but  admitted  that  of 
"  spirit."  Kant  admitted  matter  or  a  non-sensible  cause  (nichtsinn- 
liche  Ursache)  of  sensations,  and  the  existence  of  other  individual 
centers  of  consciousness,  or  social  persons.  This  he  did  in  spite  of  his 
radical  ideality  of  "  knowledge,"  though  I  have  tried  to  show  that  his 
position  was  that  of  hypothetical  realism,  which  he  would  not  have 
called  this,  as  the  real  to  him  would  have  been  a  categorical  implicate 
of  causality,  had  he  formulated  the  relation  of  cause  to  the  existence 
or  occurrence  of  sensations  as  he  did  to  their  synthesis.  There  is, 
therefore,  in  his  admission  the  possibility  that  space  construction  only 
reproduces  the  quality  of  external  reality,  a  conception  rendered  all  the 
more  conceivable  from  the  discrepancy  between  sensation  and  "  percep- 
tion," the  capacity  of  the  latter  for  extension  beyond  the  former  being 
assumed  in  the  very  fact  that  its  contents  are  not  limited  to  the  sensa- 
tion. That  matter  should  be  conceded  objectivity  in  spite  of  the  sub- 
jectivity of  sensation  would  only  make  it  all  the  more  imperative  to 
recognize  the  tenacity  and  inexpugnability  of  space  "  percepts  "  for 
objectivity,  especially  when  they  are  the  data  for  giving  what  meaning 
objectivity  has. 

Somewhat  suggestive  evidence  can  be  drawn  from  the  general  law 
of  evolution.  In  this  we  find  that  there  is  a  tendency  of  individuals  to 
adjust  themselves  to  environment  in   a   way  to  resemble   it   in  their 


3^0  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

functional  action.  In  some  cases  this  even  takes  the  form  of  originat- 
ing the  most  positive  resemblance  in  the  subject  to  qualities  in  the 
object.  This  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  phenomena  of  color  adap- 
tation, and  even  in  some  cases  aspects  of  form  resembling  environment. 
In  some  cases  this  may  require  but  a  short  time.  The  hare  will  change 
the  color  of  its  fur  for  summer  and  winter  to  suit  its  surroundings.  If 
evolution  effects  such  adaptations  as  this  it  is  quite  possible  that  it 
might  develop  in  consciousness  the  capacity  of  "  ideal  "  or  subjective 
action  which  would  represent  correctly  the  nature  of  objective  reality 
and  present  no  other  antithesis  to  it  than  is  necessary  to  preserve  indi- 
viduality. This  ought  to  be  the  less  objectionable  that  Kant  admits,, 
as  I  have  said,  the  existence  of  other  persons  like  himself,  which 
assumes  resemblances  between  subject  and  object,  and  with  the  Leib- 
nitz ian  view  the  action  of  the  one  simply  mirrors  that  of  the  other,  so 
that  the  subjective  is  a  true  representative  of  the  objective.  I  do  not 
think  that  this  is  a  true  description  of  the  whole  case,  and  because  this 
is  the  fact  it  is  difficult  to  show  when  the  objective  is  correctly  and 
when  incorrectly  represented.  Besides  there  are  antitheses  between 
subject  and  object,  and  we  have  to  be  able  to  draw  the  line  between 
what  is  subjective  and  objective  in  each  case,  and  that  may  not  always 
be  an  easy  task.  But  I  do  not  refer  to  the  "  phenomena"  of  adapta- 
tion to  prove  the  correctness  of  objective  "perception"  nor  to  prove 
the  resemblance  between  "  impression"  and  object :  for  the  difference 
between  these  has  to  be  admitted  on  any  theory.  I  refer  to  the  fact 
only  to  show  that  evolution  may  so  develop  capacities  that,  whether 
like  what  they  represent  or  not,  may  correctly  report  reality  and  it  is 
only  a  question  of  evidence  to  decide  whether  it  has  done  so  or  not. 
Besides  it  might  even  fail  to  make  the  cognition  presentative  and  yet 
be  correct  in  the  assertion  of  objectivity.  All  that  adjustment  requires 
or  may  mean  is  that  there  is  an  objective  reality  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  "knowledge"  and  action,  and  whether  it  is  presentative  or  non- 
presentative  is  a  secondary  question. 

But  it  is  the  "  phenomenon"  of  upright  vision  that  offers  the  most 
distinct  evidence  of  this  adjustment  and  of  the  possibility  even  that 
"perception"  may  represent  space  relations  correctly  without  being 
presentative.  We  have  seen  that  the  retinal  images  of  objects  are  in- 
verted, that  is,  the  relative  positions  of  points  in  these  images  are  the 
inverse  of  what  they  are  in  objects  producing  them,  and  this  can  be 
expressed  without  assuming  the  space  ideas  of  "  perception,"  in  so  far 
as  the  argument  here  is  concerned.  We  do  not  have  to  go  beyond  the 
"  ideality  "  of  these  objects  to  recognize  the  fact.     It  is  a  fact  on  any 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  321 


theory  of  reality.  A  double  interest  attaches  to  it.  There  is  the  radi- 
cal difference  between  the  sensory  "  impression  "  and  the  "  percept  " 
and  the  fact  that  the  "  percept  "  reproduces  the  objective  relation  and  not 
the  subjective.  However  much  "  ideality  "  we  assign  the  act  of  "  per- 
ception "  in  this  case  it  reports  the  external  and  not  the  sensory  condi- 
tion. What  is  additionally  interesting  is  the  circumstance  that  the 
reproduction  of  the  objective  relations  conforms  to  the  tactual  and 
muscular  quale,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the  associationist,  so 
that  we  might  even  claim  that  the  visual  and  tactual  data  are  the  same 
in  kind,  and  thus  an  evidence  of  the  nativity  of  visual  space  while  we 
sustain  its  objectivity  in  spite  of  its  "  ideal "  genesis.  I  shall  not  urge 
this  view,  however,  as  there  are  undoubted  differences,  whatever  the 
resemblances  between  visual  and  tactual  qualia.  Possibly  a  further 
vantage  ground  could  be  gained  by  suggesting  that  our  conception  of 
the  nature  of  the  image  or  "  impression  "  is  indirectly  secured  by  infer- 
ence, so  that  the  very  assumption  of  what  is  subjective  may  be  the 
wrong  point  of  view  with  which  to  start  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
phenomena,  as  examination  may  show  that,  according  to  the  theory  of 
physics  and  optics,  that  the  "impression"  is  nothing  but  a  mode  of 
motion  in  the  retina  whose  extended  character  is  itself  a  matter  of 
inferential  construction,  so  that  the  "perceptive"  act  in  transcending 
the  subjective  may  correctly  report  the  objective  relation  as  it  certainly 
does  not  report  immediately  the  inverted  relation  of  the  "  image"  on 
the  retina.  But  I  shall  not  use  this  argument  too  insistently.  The 
important  fact  is  the  adaptation  of  "  perception  "  to  the  objective  con- 
ditions, in  so  far  as  they  are  either  comparable  with  the  subjective  or 
determinable  at  all.  It  is  noticeable  in  this  connection  also  that  there 
are  certain  insects  whose  retina  is  convex  instead  of  concave,  according 
to  the  authority  of  Professor  Le  Conte,  on  which  the  image  is  upright 
and  not  inverted,  and  the  evidence  goes  that,  in  spite  of  this  convexity 
objects  are  seen  precisely  as  we  see  them,  the  law  of  reference  being 
in  their  eyes  precisely  as  it  is  in  the  human  eye,  so  that  the  line  of 
direction  in  a  convex  surface  is  the  same  in  effect  as  that  in  the  con- 
cave, the  image  being  in  the  one  the  reverse  of  the  other.  The  adap- 
tation of  the  act  of  consciousness  to  the  objective  in  this  instance  seems 
anomalous,  but  after  all  is  only  according  to  the  same  general  law,  and 
confirmatory  of  the  fact  that  objectivity  is  entitled  to  as  much  con- 
sideration in  "perception"  as  subjectivity. 

There  is  a  way  in  which  the  apparent  force  of  the  binocular  experi- 
ments which  I  have  described  as  favoring  the  idealistic  interpretation 
of  space  "  perception  "  may  be  broken  or  modified.     It  is  to  note  the 


322  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

fact  that  the  distortion  of  plane  and  solid  dimension  in  the  figures  indi- 
cated not  only  represents  an  abnormal  condition,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  involving  the  incoordination  of  distinct  functions  in  vision, 
but  also  represents  the  phenomena  of  localization  in  space  rather  than 
the  true  "  perception  "  of  space.  This  is  to  imply  that  the  real  and 
true  space  is  given  in  the  properly  "perceptive"  act  representing 
extension  in  the  abstract,  if  I  may  so  speak,  and  that  the  specific  rela- 
tion of  objects  to  it  may  represent  what  might  be  called  "empirical 
space,"  in  Kantian  phraseology,  the  sensory  phantasm  which  is  the 
sensational  correspondent  or  correlate  of  what  is  essentially  non-sensory 
in  its  primary  nature.  Thus  in  the  variations  of  perspective  and  magni- 
tude, according  to  the  degree  of  convergence  as  described  in  the  experi- 
ments, the  space  "  percept  "  as  a  whole,  the  "  pure  intuition,"  remains 
constant  while  it  is  only  the  locus  of  objects  in  it  that  exhibits  the  vari- 
ants. We  may  thus  distinguish  between  localization  and  the  real  space 
"perception"  which  represents  more  than  sensory  data,  while  the 
synthetic  character  of  this  function  added  to  the  sensory,  not  implicated 
in  it,  exposes  it  to  distortion  and  illusion.  The  experiments  may 
therefore  not  be  so  conclusive  as  they  appear  against  the  space  quale 
or  reality  of  objects,  especially  as  we  have  to  admit  that  the  conditions 
under  which  the  "perception"  takes  place  are  abnormal,  while  the 
normal  represent  the  result  of  evolutionary  adjustment  to  the  objective 
world.  This  sort  of  argument  and  reply  may  not  be  fully  satisfactory, 
but  it  represents  a  fact  which  must  be  considered  in  the  case,  the  more 
or  less  abnormal  conditions  under  which  artificial  fusion  takes  place, 
even  though  the  functions  involved  act  normally,  the  synthetic  character 
of  the  normal  process  being  proved  and  liable  to  distortion  when 
conditions  change. 

But  the  great  puzzle  for  most  minds  is  the  real  or  apparent  demand 
that  we  shall  treat  space  as  having  a  wholly  "  ideal  "  meaning,  as  hav- 
ing a  merely  "  subjective  "  and  not  an  "  objective  "  or  external  reality, 
while  the  sensory  data  of  color,  sound,  hardness,  etc.,  if  not  represen- 
tative of  an  external  reality,  have  at  least  a  meaning  for  the  existence 
of  something  "  external  "  to  the  ego.  Of  course  Kant  might  hold  to 
that  paradoxical  view  of  the  world  which  so  idealizes  it  because  of  his 
Leibnitzian  conceptions  involving  the  entire  spontaneity  of  knowledge 
and  the  receptivity  of  nothing,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  spaceless 
nature  of  matter  or  reality,  on  the  other,  that  is,  its  consistence  in 
spaceless  points  of  force,  according  to  the  conceptions  of  some  of  its 
exponents.  Its  nature  was  not  imported  into  consciousness,  though 
it  could  arouse  in  consciousness  a  cognition  of  its  existence,  but  not  in 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE   AND    OBJECTIVITY.  323 

its  real  character.  It  thus  involved  the  idea  that  sensation  implied  or 
indicated  objectivity  even  when  it  did  not  simulate  or  represent  it  in 
its  nature.  But  the  derivation  of  space  from  subjective  intuition 
seemed  to  leave  this  "  percept"  without  an  objective  meaning,  simply 
because  it  was  not  evoked  by  the  principle  of  causality  as  usually  ap- 
plied to  sensory  data.  Sensible  qualities  were  given  an  objective  im- 
port, but  space  was  not,  and  yet  space  was  so  inextricably  interwoven 
with  sense  ' «  percepts  "  that  it  seemed  absurd  or  paradoxical  to  refuse 
it  a  similar  objective  meaning,  and  involved  the  strange  conception 
that  the  external  world  was  spaceless,  though  its  spatiality  seems  a 
necessary  implicate  of  its  otherness  than  the  subject,  and  that  the  total 
sense  "  percept  "  of  consciousness,  involving  sensory  and  spatial  qualia, 
is  a  synthesis  of  functions  which  are  assumed  to  have  different  mean- 
ings, one  of  them  having  a  reference  to  the  objective  and  the  other 
having  no  such  reference. 

From  one  point  of  view  this  position  may  be  consistent  enough. 
Kant's  doctrine  of  the  "  receptivity  "  of  sense  involved  him,  consciously 
■or  unconsciously,  in  the  materialistic  interpretation  of  sensation,  at 
least  to  some  extent,  whether  he  interpreted  it  from  the  principle  of 
material  or  efficient  causation.  But  Kant  does  not  emphasize  the  posi- 
tion that  his  knowledge  of  external  reality  is  based  upon  the  principle 
of  causality,  though  this  conception  of  it  is  tacitly  assumed  in  his  theory 
of  sense  "perception."  This  is  where  he  obtains  his  objective  refer- 
ence of  sensation,  that  is,  of  the  sensible  qualities  of  matter  or  reality. 
But  the  principle  of  causality  is  just  as  tacitly  excluded  from  space 
"  perception,"  since  this  is  said  to  be  an  a  priori  intuition  of  the  mind 
superimposed  upon  the  matter  of  sensation  not  contained.  Thus  the 
two  associated  functions  of  sensation  and  space  "  perception  "  may  ap- 
pear to  be  connected  without  having  similar  meanings  for  reality. 

But  two  things  are  forgotten  in  this  view  of  the  case.  The  first  is 
the  confused  conception  of  sensation  which  Kant  holds.  On  the  one 
hand,  he  conceives  it  as  a  "receptive"  product,  which,  when  strictly 
interpreted,  implies  that  it  is  to  be  explained  by  the  principle  of  mate- 
rial causality,  the  principle  of  identity,  which  would  give  its  objective 
meaning  to  be  the  same  as  the  subjective.  This  position  would  be 
that  of  naive  realism  or  common  sense,  in  which  external  reality  is  as 
it  appears,  according  to  Kantian  and  other  representations.  This 
fundamental  conception  of  ' '  receptivity  "  is  a  departure  from  Leib- 
nitz ian  ideas  which  excluded  this  transmission  or  injluxus  physicus, 
and  involves  this  nai've  realism,  which,  if  accepted,  might  account  for 
the  synthetic  relation  of  space  to  sensation  or  sensory  qualities  by  im- 


324  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

plicating  it  with  the  mode  of  causal  action  of  reality  without  giving 
space  any  causal  action  itself.  Kant,  however,  does  not  accept  this 
view  of  "receptivity."  After  defining  sensation  as  "receptive"  he 
takes  a  view  which  is  an  abandonment  of  this  "  receptivity  "  altogether 
and  in  every  strict  meaning  of  the  term.  Hence  the  second  thing  that 
is  forgotten  is  the  fact  that  Kant  still  clings  to  the  Leibnitzian  notion 
that  sensations  are  "phenomenal,"  that  they  are  subjective  reactions 
against  external  stimulus,  that  they  are  not  representative  simulacra  of 
reality,  but  modes  of  mental  action  unlike  the  nature  of  the  occasion- 
ing cause.  This  is  an  interpretation  of  sensation  according  to  the 
principle  of  efficient  causality,  and  assumes  an  aetiological  but  not  an 
ontological  relation  between  subject  and  object,  that  is,  a  causal  rela- 
tion without  implying  their  identity,  even  though  that  identity  be  other- 
wise discovered  to  be  a  fact.  This  interpretation  of  sensation  by  the 
conception  of  efficient  causation  and  excluding  the  material  is  an  aband- 
onment of  its  true  "  receptivity  "  and  a  return  to  the  "  spontaneity  "  of 
Leibnitz  in  so  far  as  the  nature  of  sensation  is  concerned,  though  not 
in  so  far  as  its  occurrence  is  concerned.1  But  in  spite  of  this  view  and 
of  the  return  to  the  Leibnitzian  conception  it  retains  the  belief  in  ex- 
ternal reality  which  in  the  first  conception  depended  upon  the  principle 
of  identity  in  conjunction  with  that  of  efficient  causality.  But  having 
eliminated  the  principle  of  identity,  material  causation,  from  the  case, 
he  had  either  to  retain  the  judgment  of  objectivity  in  connection  with  that 
of  efficient  causality,  or  to  accept  solipsism.  But  refusing  to  accept 
solipsism,  as  Kant's  refutation  of  idealism  was  meant  to  indicate,  and 
assigning  sensation  an  objective  meaning  or  interpretation  through 
efficient  causation  alone,  Kant  ought  to  have  seen  that  he  could  take  a 
new  conception  of  knowledge,  as  the  recognition  of  the  principle  of 
"  Sufficient  Reason"  in  the  Nova  Dilucidatio  implied,  supplementing 
that  of  Identity,  and  so  instead  of  supposing  that  consciousness  could  not 
transcend  itself,  as  it  certainly  could  not  do  on  the  principle  of  identity, 
he  could  hold  this  transcendence  on  the  principle  of  efficient  causality. 
But  once  grant  that  it  is  the  function  of  consciousness  to  transcend 
itself  in  knowledge,  the  only  limitations  which  it  will  possess  will  be 
determined  by  the  extent  to  which  we  condition  that  transcendence  by 
the  principle  of  efficient  causality  alone.  If  efficient  causality  repre- 
sent the  sole  meaning  of  objectivity  it  would  be  impossible  to  assign 
space  any  objective  reality  so  long  as  we  denied  its  causal  influence 
upon  the  subject.     Space  would  be  a  functional  action  of  the  subject 

XA  clear  statement  of  Kant's  own  point  of  view  appears  in  his  view  of  mat- 
ter.    "  Transcendental  Dialectic,"  Max  Muller's  translation,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  333~336- 


'     PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  325 

on  non-spatial  objective  "phenomena."  So  far  Kant  would  be  con- 
sistent, and  we  could  secure  objective  reality  to  space  only  by  assuming 
some  other  principle  of  objectivity  than  efficient  causality  alone. 

But  there  are  certain  important  facts  which  his  system  neglects  to 
notice.  The  first  is  that  the  principle  of  efficient  causality  does  not 
necessarily  involve  the  judgment  of  external  reality  in  all  its  functional 
applications.  It  also  determines  the  existence  of  the  ego  or  internal 
reality  and  shows  no  tendency  in  doing  so  to  conceive  it  objectively. 
Consequently,  existence  other  than  the  fact  to  be  related  may  be 
affirmed  without  necessarily  involving  externality  or  objectivity  of  a 
spatial  character.  How  then  does  the  mind  ever  discriminate  at  all 
between  the  internal  and  external,  the  subjective  and  the  objective,  as 
Kant  did?  Why  should  not  all  our  judgments  be  solipsistic?  The 
reply  to  these  questions  comes  back  to  the  fact  that  efficient  or  other 
causality  is  not  the  sole  principle  of  objectivity.  Objective  reality  has 
more  meaning  than  efficient  causality,  though  this  be  one  of  its  ele- 
ments when  matter  is  concerned,  so  that  the  transcendency  of  con- 
sciousness, while  it  is  guaranteed  in  one  relation  by  the  principle  of 
efficient  causality,  may  involve  functions  that  assert  it  without  apply- 
ing such  causation  as  its  sole  condition  or  determinant.  How  can 
this  be  done? 

The  first  answer  to  this  question  is  that,  if  space  were  not  an  ob- 
jective fact  of  some  kind,  there  would  be  no  reason  whatever  for  the 
variations  of  magnitude  and  distance  which  we  observe  in  connection 
with  sensations.  There  ought  to  be  perfect  constancy  in  our  notion  of 
magnitude  and  distance,  since  the  nature  of  the  sensory  impression  is 
and  must  be  regarded  in  the  Kantian  view  as  of  a  uniform  character  in 
its  qualitative  aspects.  The  Kantian  must  assume  that  spatial  qualia 
are  no  intrinsic  part  of  sensation  or  of  its  object  and  so  cannot  be  any 
part  of  the  impression  or  stimulus,  but  that  they  are  superadded  or 
synthetic  additions  to  sensory  "phenomena"  or  phantasms,  additions 
to  data  not  containing  them.  Hence  sensations  will  be  conceived  as 
having  a  uniform  quality  and  will  vary  only  in  degree  of  intensity. 
But  there  is  no  apparent  relation  whatever  between  the  quantitative 
aspect  of  sensations  and  the  spatial  qualia  associated  with  them,  as 
there  should  be  if  these  qualia  were  expressions  or  correlates  of  inten- 
sity in  sensory  data.  The  causes  of  sensation  must,  therefore,  exist 
in  some  relation  that  affects  the  mind  in  a  way  to  call  out  or  occasion 
the  spatial  quale  in  a  particular  form,  and  that  relation  may  as  well  be 
called  objective  "  space"  as  anything  else,  though  subjective  "  space" 
be  unlike  it  in  character,  just  as  physical  "  color"  and  "  sound"  are 


3^6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

supposed  to  be  unlike  physical  "  color"  and  "  sound."  On  any  other 
condition,  all  space  relations  in  sensation  ought  to  represent  a  qualita- 
tive uniformity  which  they  do  not  do  in  fact.  If  the  mind  determines 
the  whole  spatial  quale  without  any  reference  to  the  conditions  of  ex- 
ternal reality  it  should  represent  it  with  some  such  uniformity  as  the 
specific  nerve  energies  represent  sensation  which  are  constant  in  quality 
and  vary  only  with  variations  in  the  objective  reality.  Hence  varia-  ' 
tions  in  the  space  qualia  or  relations  independent  of  quantity  and 
quality  in  sensations  suggest  an  objective  relation  of  some  kind  other 
than  the  assumed  non-spatial  dynamic  activity  of  matter.  Magnitude  and 
distance  bear  no  known  relation  or  correlation  with  either  the  quality  or 
the  quantity,  the  nature  or  the  intensity,  of  sensations,  according  to 
the  necessary  conceptions  of  the  Kantian,  applying  non-spatial  caus- 
ality to  one  and  excluding  it  from  the  other.  Hence  it  would  appear 
that  the  variations  of  this  fundamental  product  of  consciousness  are  in 
some  way  correlated  with  variations  and  relations  in  reality  which  are 
presumably  not  a  part  of  the  content  of  sensation.  This  would  sug- 
gest that  spatial  qualia  have  some  meaning  beyond  consciousness  or 
sensory  phantasms,  and  evolution,  of  whose  significance  Kant  could 
take  no  account,  comes  in  with  its  principle  of  adjustment  to  environ- 
ment, a  conception  excluded  from  the  Leibnitz ian  doctrine,  to  render 
probable  an  objective  explanation  for  space  qualia,  even  though  we  do 
not  make  them  representative  in  consciousness  of  that  which  is  implied. 
The  force  of  the  Kantian  view,  as  usually  conceived  and  defined, 
depends  on  assumptions  that  are  derived  from  the  Leibnitzian  philos- 
ophy. This  system  made  the  transmission  of  impressions  from  with- 
out impossible.  That  is,  the  external  world  could  not  be  causally 
admitted  into  the  internal  world,  and  hence  the  "phenomenal" 
nature  of  what  was  "known,"  and  the  "unknown"  or  "unknow- 
able" was  beyond.  This  conception  of  the  case  gave  rise  to  the 
assumption,  either  implicit  or  explicit,  tacit  or  conscious,  that  we  could 
not  "  perceive"  what  is  not  in  the  sensation.  When,  therefore,  the 
external  world  is  conceived  as  spaceless  in  its  real  nature,  it  cannot 
produce  a  spatial  quale  in  the  impression  by  any  ontological  influences, 
as  these  are  not  even  admissible  for  matter,  and  both  the  ontological 
and  the  aetiological  agency  of  space  is  denied,  even  though  it  be 
accorded  an  objective  existence.  Consequently  space  "perception" 
will  appear  as  an  a  priori  subjective  function  and  phantasm  or  intui- 
tion, supposedly  not  representative  of  any  corresponding  objective 
reality  for  the  reason  that  there  is  no  assumed  causal  action  to  evoke 
it.     But  if  consciousness  transcends  itself,  as  it  were,  in  applying  the 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  Z21 

principle  of  causality  as  explained,  so  that  it  is  of  the  nature  of  con- 
sciousness in  certain  conditions  to  affirm  something  not  in  the  impres- 
sion or  sensation,  and  if  the  principle  of  causality  in  its  purity  does  not 
necessarily  imply  what  is  known  as  an  external  world,  there  must  be 
some  other  function  for  discriminating  between  the  internal  and 
external,  and  this  is  in  fact  the  conception  of  space.  That  this  func- 
tion of  consciousness  exists  is  clearly  illustrated  in  the  binocular  "  per- 
ception "  of  the  third  dimension,  as  has  been  indicated,  where  we  do 
not  assume  a  corresponding  or  representative  relation  to  causality  in 
the  object  or  in  the  contents  of  the  sensation,  as  usually  conceived. 
Here  the  mind  "  perceives  "  what  is  not  "  in  "  the  sensation  and  tran- 
scends itself,  as  a  "phenomenal"  occurrence,  in  positing  its  object. 
This  is  to  say  that  space  can  be  produced  or  posited  without  being  a 
part  of  the  impressions  or  sensations  associated  with  it,  that  is,  with- 
out entering  into  the  material  content  of  the  impression  from  without. 

But  I  shall  be  told  that  this  is  precisely  what  Kant  wishes  us  to 
consider  it  and  that  we  have  not  secured  its  objectivity  until  we  have 
shown  that  space  is  a  part  of  the  external  reality  which  acts  causally 
on  the  subject.  It  is  supposed  to  be  purely  subjective  only  because 
causal  action  is  denied  to  space,  both  etiological  and  ontological,  and 
it  is  said  to  represent  no  part  of  the  sensory  content  imported  or  occa- 
sioned by  material  reality.  Assuming  that  the  object  does  not  transmit 
its  properties  or  appearances  to  the  subject  and  that  space  cannot  act 
on  the  subject  at  all,  as  it  is  not  a  "  property  "  of  the  object,  according 
to  Kant,  the  objectivity  of  space  will  seem  to  depend,  not  merely  on 
"  perceiving"  what  is  not  "  in"  the  sensation,  but  also  in  "  perceiv- 
ing" what  is  "  in"  the  object  though  not  causally  active  and  what  is 
assumed  to  envelop  and  to  be  independent  of  the  object  and  yet  not 
acting  causally  on  the  subject.  But  if,  in  seeing  space,  we  seem  to  see 
what  is  really  or  apparently  not  a  property  of  the  object,  it  would 
appear  that  the  spatial  qualia  are  wholly  subjective  and  do  not  refer  to 
a  corresponding  objective  reality. 

Now  this  seems  to  be  the  fact  in  the  binocular  "perception"  of 
solidity  or  the  third  dimension,  especially  in  artificial  fusion  of  images 
in  plane  dimension.  That  is,  objects  that  are  demonstrably  not  solid 
at  all  on  any  theory  of  space  appear  to  have  a  third  dimension.  That 
is,  we  seem  to  see  what  is  not  in  the  object  as  well  as  not  in  the  sen- 
sation, a  fact  which  would  seem  to  imply  that  the  spatial  qualia  are 
subjective  constructions  only  and  without  objective  meaning. 

The  first  thing  to  consider  in  reply  to  this  view  is  that,  in  conceiv- 
ing an  objective  reality  for  space,  we  are  no  more  obliged  to  represent 


32S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

it  as  objectively  what  it  is  subjectively  than  we  are  obliged  to  suppose 
subjective  "  color"  to  be  the  same  as  objective  "  color."  We  are  not 
anymore  required  to  apply  the  principle  of  identity  to  space  "per- 
ception" than  to  the  "perception"  of  sensory  qualities.  We  may 
suppose  the  same  sort  of  differences  between  subjective  and  objective 
space  that  we  assume  between  sensation  and  the  qualities  or  conditions 
that  give  rise  to  them.  All  that  objective  space  requires  to  be  is  some 
relation  in  which  things  exist  and  that  will  account  for  the  peculiar 
way  in  which  they  are  seen  when  the  sensations  will  not  account  for 
it  and  when  it  cannot  explain  the  variations  in  the  spatial  qualia  asso- 
ciated with  sensations. 

The  second  point  in  reply  is  that  it  is  easy  to  misunderstand  and  to 
misrepresent  the  import  of  what  is  apparent  in  the  binocular  phenom- 
ena that  seem  to  illustrate  the  "perception"  of  what  is  not  in  the 
object.  The  "  perception"  of  solidity,  when  the  objects  are  known  to 
be  geometrically  plane  figures,  is  properly  speaking  a  problem  of 
localization  in  a  spatial  continuum  not  wholly  determined  by  the  fig- 
ures concerned.  We  do  not  really  see  a  solid  object  in  such  cases, 
but  only  two  plane  figures  localized  in  the  relative  positions  which  the 
superficies  of  a  solid  object  would  represent.  The  real  spatial 
qualia,  magnitude  and  distance,  are  the  same  whether  the  figures 
are  seen  as  plane  or  solid,  and  the  appearance  of  the  latter  under  cer- 
tain conditions  is  only  a  matter  of  localization  under  anomalous  and 
abnormal  circumstances  in  a  spatial  continuum  which  is  not  deter- 
mined by  either  the  function  of  localization  or  by  the  fact  of  the  par- 
ticular stimulus,  especially  when  this  localization  involves  the  malad- 
justment of  the  functions  of  sensation  and  of  space  "  perception."  I 
do  not  dispute  the  real  or  apparent  distortion  of  die  supposed  spatial 
relations  of  objects  under  these  conditions  or  that  they  are  seen  to  be 
or  to  appear  in  a  different  form  from  that  which  is  their  proper  char- 
acter. Nor  would  I  dispute  a  subjective  character  for  space  quite  like 
the  subjective  character  of  all  sensory  "  perceptions,"  in  so  far  as  they 
are  "  phenomenal"  reactions.  But  what  I  am  trying  to  insist  upon  is 
the  view  that  there  is  some  condition  or  relation  objective  to  the  mind 
besides  color,  sound,  hardness,  etc.,  which  may  be  treated  as  the  cor- 
relate in  reality  of  what  we  call  space  in  "  perception."  The  con- 
tinuum representing  the  condition  for  giving  any  plasticity  at  all  to 
appearances  and  not  in  any  way  determined  by  the  limitations  of  the 
physical  object  involved  is  that  important  fact  which  requires  as  much 
consideration  as  the  distortion  of  localization.  We  do  not  absolutely 
require  that  we  should  see  the  spatial  quale  in  the  object,  but  that  we 


PERCEPTION  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  Z29 

should  see  the  object  in  the  spatial  quale.  This  is  in  fact  the  way  in 
which  Kant  conceived  the  relation  even  when  he  says  that  space  was 
purely  subjective.  He  had  returned  to  the  physicist's  point  of  view  in 
conceiving  space  when  the  Leibnitzians  had  departed  from  it.  The 
physicists  had  always  conceived  space  as  the  condition  of  the  existence 
of  matter,  but  Spinoza  conceived  it  as  a  property  of  matter  inhering  in 
it  and  though  Leibnitz  did  not  exactly  take  this  view,  at  least  in  so  far 
as  form  of  statement  is  concerned,  he  did  not  treat  it  as  a  condition  in 
which  matter  existed  or  as  necessary  for  that  existence.  The  Spino- 
zists  could  say  that  space  existed  in  matter  and  so  that  matter  condi- 
tioned the  existence  of  space.  The  Leibnitzians  might  say  that  matter 
existed  in  space,  but  they  had  to  maintain  that  it  was  not  an  inherent 
property  of  matter  and  in  no  respect  conditioned  its  existence  or 
action.  Kant  departed  from  Spinoza  when  he  denied  that  space  was 
a  property  of  matter  and  he  departed  from  both  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz 
when  he  maintained  that  it  was  a  prior  condition  of  the  existence  of 
matter.  But  Kant  did  this  with  a  distinction  which  we  must  not  for- 
get. He  held  that  space  was  not  a  property  of  matter  "  in  itself  " 
{materia  noumenon),  while  he  did  not  deny  that  it  was  a  property 
of  matter  as  a  "phenomenon"  {materia  phenomenon).  But  he 
ought  to  have  seen  that  "  phenomena  "  could  have  no  properties  what- 
ever, in  any  sense  of  the  term  "  property  "  as  he  used  it  to  describe 
the  power  of  matter  to  affect  the  subject.  For  it  was  through  its 
properties  that  it  produced  impressions  and  became  known  while  he 
could  not  consistently  say  that  it  was  "  phenomena  "  that  affected  the 
subject,  since  they  were  the  effects,  the  things  "  known,"  the  subjec- 
tive reactions  of  the  mind  elicited  in  response  to  the  activities,  proper- 
ties (Krafte)  of  matter  external  to  us  and  in  itself  not  transmissible 
to  the  subject.  But  if  "phenomena"  can  have  no  properties  what- 
ever in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term  affecting  the  theory  of  knowledge 
as  Kant  implicitly  conditions  it,  we  should  have  to  exclude  the  sensory 
qualities  as  such,  even  as  correlate  attributes  or  actions,  from  ex- 
ternal matter,  and  we  should  have  reality  wholly  propertyless,  a  con- 
clusion which  would  result  in  solipsism  for  psychology  and  virtual 
nihilism  for  matter.  But  if  we  are  to  suppose  that  space  is  a  property 
of  "  phenomena  "  and  that  it  sustains  the  same  relation  to  them  as  it  sus- 
tains to  matter  in  the  conception  of  physics  generally,  and  if  at  the  same 
time  we  assume  that  "  phenomena  "  or  sensible  qualities  imply  proper- 
ties in  reality  affecting  the  subject,  whether  they  are  as  they  seem  or  not, 
it  would  seem  very  anomalous  that  this  which  has  no  objective  refer- 
ence should  yet  condition  the  existence  of  that  which  has  such  a  refer- 


330  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ence  !  Kant  ought  to  have  avoided  the  conception  of  conditioning  "  phe- 
nomena "  by  space  intuition  and  so  not  to  have  imported  into  the  mental 
the  analogies  of  the  physical  unless  he  meant  to  carry  them  out  to  the  full 
extent.  If  he  was  going  to  exclude  space  from  objective  reality  in 
some  sense  he  should  also  have  excluded  its  conditioning  relation  to 
"  phenomena"  and  to  have  treated  space  merely  as  a  synthetic  accom- 
paniment of  sensory  "phenomena"  and  no  more  necessary  to  them 
than  to  reality.  But  having  accepted  physical  analogies  for  expressing 
the  relation  of  space  to  "phenomena"  in  order  to  set  aside  the 
Spinozistic  and  Leibnitzian  conceptions,  that  is,  by  saying  that  "  phe- 
nomena "  are  in  space  instead  of  saying  that  space  is  in  "  phenomena," 
and  then  giving  "  phenomena  "  an  objective  reference  when  their  con- 
dition, which  is  purely  subjective  by  assumption,  ought  not  to  admit 
their  objective  reference,  he  ought  to  have  seen  that  it  would  be  no 
violation  of  philosophic  principle  to  admit  a  relation  for  reality  which 
might  go  by  the  name  of  objective  "space"  as  a  condition  of  our 
being  affected  at  all  by  this  reality.  That  is,  reality  may  exist  in  the 
same  relation  to  objective  "  space"  that  "phenomena"  sustain  to  sub- 
jective "  space,"  and  it  should  do  this  if  space  is  a  condition  of  "  phe- 
nomena "  instead  of  a  mere  synthetic  associate  of  them,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  inconsistency  of  admitting  that  space  can  be  a  property  of  "  phe- 
nomena" while  "phenomena"  are  conditioned  by  it,  that  is,  seen  in 
it!  A  mental  process  which  can  treat  space  as  a  condition  of  "phe- 
nomena" ;  which  can  conceive  it  at  the  same  time  as  a  property  of 
"phenomena";  which  denies  it  is  a  property  of  external  reality,  and 
which  gives  a  constructive  form  to  "  phenomena"  having  an  objective 
reference  while  it  itself  has  no  such  reference,  though  obliged  to  accept 
variations  in  sensory  data  not  consistent  with  the  constructive  fixity 
which  space  should  have  in  the  theory,  is  certainly  very  anomalous. 

But  the  facts  of  binocular  vision  seem  to  indicate  that  there  is  no 
reason  for  supposing  what  Kant  assumes,  namely,  that  space  quality 
is  a  condition  of  "  phenomena,"  as  the  third  dimension  is  not  apparent 
in  the  sensation  with  which  it  becomes  associated.  That  is,  so  far 
from  having  a  spatial  quale  of  the  third  dimension  in  it,  this  quale  is 
excluded  from  it,  and  hence  it  would  appear  that  the  very  condition  of 
treating  space  as  subjective  would  be  its  exclusion  alike  from  the 
"phenomenon"  and  the  reality  and  so  its  exclusion  from  the  con- 
ditions of  sensation.  But  what  Kant  sees  is  the  fact  that  space  extends 
beyond  the  sensible  boundaries  of  reality  and  is  not  implicated  in  the 
limitations  of  reality's  causality,  and  hence,  supposing  that  space 
"  perception  "  is  not  elicited  by  the  causal  action  of  an  objective  cor- 


PERCEPTION-  OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  33  r 

relate  to  mutter  and  its  properties,  he  assumes  that  it  has  no  such  real- 
ity external  to  the  mind  as  the  variations  of  sensation  seem  to  suggest. 
But  when  we  come  to  the  fact  that  objective  "  space,"  if  "  perceptible," 
at  all,  must  be  "perceived,"  independently  of  the  objects  which  it 
incloses  and  which  cannot,  on  the  Kantian  theory,  determine  its  whole 
meaning ;  when  the  binocular  phenomena  which  seem  to  represent  it 
as  neither  "  in  "  the  sensation  nor  "  in  "  the  object,  are  implicated  in 
the  phenomena  of  localization  and  possibly  not  properly  or  wholly  the 
"perception"  of  spatial  qualia  per  se;  when  we  consider  that  there 
is  no  excuse  for  the  variations  of  spatial  qualia  except  for  certain 
peculiar  relations  of  the  object  apart  from  its  causal  action ;  and  when 
the  doctrine  of  evolutionary  adjustment  is  applied,  as  Kant  could  not 
admit  this  from  his  Leibnitzian  affiliations,  environment  and  its  in- 
fluence not  being  admissible  in  this  philosophy  as  either  affecting  the 
nature  of  reality  or  the  origin  of  "  knowledge  "  —  when  these  are  con- 
sidered, we  may  discover  that  there  is  nothing  to  oppose,  but  every- 
thing to  favor,  even  when  it  does  not  prove,  the  position  that  in  some 
sense  space  is  objective,  though  it  be  much  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
color,  sound,  etc.,  are  objective.  Then  remembering  that  we  may  not 
be  required  to  apply  either  the  principle  of  identity  or  that  of  causality 
in  determining  all  objective  reality,  but  a  principle  that  either  accompa- 
nies or  lies  at  the  basis  of  both  of  them,  namely,  the  principle  of  dif- 
ference, if  only  that  of  numerical  or  mathematical  difference,  numero 
alia,  we  may  find  that  more  fundamental  function  of  consciousness  by 
which  it  transcends  itself  in  its  judgments  of  reality.  That  is,  the  very 
function  which  determines  when  objective  causality  shall  be  discrimi- 
nated from  subjective  causality,  sensations  and  their  objective  import 
from  internal  states  and  their  limitation  to  the  subject,  must  involve 
more  than  abstract  causation,  and  in  making  this  discrimination,  while  it 
conceives  time  and  space  as  enveloping  "  phenomena"  and  extending 
beyond  them,  it  will  have  no  reason  for  denying  solipsism  except  the 
conception  of  the  spatial  exclusion  (auseinander}  of  the  object  from 
the  subject,  which  is  all  that  space  need  imply  in  its  objective  aspects. 
Consider,  then,  that  the  facts  of  binocular  vision,  like  those  of  smell 
and  perhaps  other  sensory  "  experiences,"  may  show  that  space  intui- 
tions do  not  condition  "  phenomena"  and  that  we  may  perhaps  "  per- 
ceive" what  is  not  in  "phenomena"  or  any  part  of  their  content  as 
sensation  ;  that  space  "  perception  "  is  a  synthetic  function  accompany- 
ing and  not  conditioning  sensation  ;  that  the  valuations  of  spatial  qualia 
have  no  definite  correlation  with  certain  qualitative  and  quantitative 
variations  in  sensation ;  and  that  the  law  of  adjustment  involves  the 


33 2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

conception  of  objectivity  distinct  from,  even  though  related  to  causality, 
we  may  have  good  reasons  for  assigning  spatial  qualia  some  form  of 
objectivity  or  meaning  and  reference  to  it,  though  we  may  concede  that 
objective  "space"  is  not  causally  related  directly  to  "perception"  and 
though  we  do  not  interpret  the  "  percept  "  by  the  principle  of  identity. 
This  will  depend  upon  the  question  whether  we  limit  the  judgment  of 
reality  to  the  application  of  causation  to  sensation  not  containing  spatial 
qualia.  But  if  we  can  "  perceive  "  spatial  qualia  not  in  sensation  and  not 
caused  either  by  the  sensation  or  the  object  there  is  nothing  to  interfere 
with  the  "  perception  "  of  space  in  the  object  without  a  corresponding 
causal  agency,  especially  when  taking  account  of  the  principle  of 
adjustment  to  environment  in  the  process  of  evolution  which  intends 
that  the  functions  of  the  subject  shall  have  a  meaning  for  reality  even 
though  that  meaning  involves  the  assumption  of  a  difference  in  kind. 

In  conclusion,  however,  two  things  are  clear.  The  first  is  that  the 
"perceptive"  act  transcends  sensation,  that  is,  "knows"  more  than 
the  "impression"  or  what  is  usually  called  "experience."  The 
idealistic  formula  can  be  accepted  only  with  a  qualification,  and  this  is 
that  "  knowledge  "  involves  or  implies  more  than  what  is  "in  "  the 
sensation,  not  being  limited  in  any  such  way  as  Kant  asserted,  except 
in  a  formal  manner.  The  second  fact  is  that  objectivity  is  in  some 
form  a  necessary  postulate  of  rational  thinking,  whether  it  be  the 
result  of  Judgment  or  "  Intuition  "  or  the  combination  of  both.  Objec- 
tivity may  be  given  in  the  application  of  the  principle  of  causality,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  but  it  would  not  assume  a  spatial  form.  Space 
"perception"  simply  gives  it  definiteness  and  meaning,  and  more 
especially  the  individuality  which  is  necessary  in  a  cosmos  of  inde- 
pendent centers  of  reference.  While  space  is  not  constituted  by  points, 
the  mutual  exclusiveness  and  coexistence  of  points  or  positions  in 
space  are  the  best  representation  of  what  space  means  for  us  in  the 
determination  of  externality,  as  this  is  the  way  we  think  of  objectivity 
for  objects  in  relation  to  each  other.  Space  thus  gives  definiteness  to 
the  causal  judgment  and  completes  the  notion  of  externality.  But  in 
both  the  cognitive  judgment  and  in  the  "  perceptive"  act  there  is  some 
sort  of  transcending  of  consciousness  in  the  belief  or  assertion  of 
reality  that  is  not  "  in  "  the  mind. 

In  this  conclusion,  however,  I  do  not  find  it  necessary  to  maintain 
that  the  object  "is"  what  it  "appears"  to  be.  The  presentative 
nature  of  "known"  things  or  objectivity  is  not  necessary  to  the 
"knowledge"  of  them.  No  doubt  "common  sense"  does  just  as 
Kant  asserts,  namely,  takes  the  "  appearance  "  for  the  "  reality  "  with- 


PERCEPTION   OF  SPACE  AND    OBJECTIVITY.  333 

out  any  reflection  as  to  what  "appearance"  is.  It  is  not  necessary, 
however,  to  sustain  this  naive  realism  as  a  condition  of  asserting 
objective  reality.  I  am  quite  willing  to  concede  the  idealistic  conten- 
tion that  we  "know"  things  only  according  to  the  way  we  react  on 
their  action  upon  us.  Whether  they  reveal  their  "nature"  in  our 
sensory  "  percepts  "  of  them  is  immaterial  to  the  problem  of  "  knowl- 
edge." This  may  mean  in  the  last  analysis,  as  I  have  already  indicated, 
that  all  that  we  "  know"  of  reality  is  what  it  does,  and  that  what  it 
iiis"  is  what  it  does.  We  do  not  require  to  "know"  more.  The 
desire  to  "  know  "  what  it  "is  "  in  any  other  sense  is  born  of  the  indo- 
lent disposition  to  draw  deductive  inferences  regarding  the  future 
instead  of  studying  nature  inductively.  Besides  the  non-presentative 
nature  of  things,  possibly  necessary  for  preserving  the  individuality  of 
themselves  and  that  of  the  subject  affected,  may  require  also  that  we 
should  "  know  "  them  only  by  what  they  "  do  "  rather  than  by  what 
they  "  are."  But  however  this  may  be,  objectivity  of  some  sort  is  all 
that  is  needed  to  make  thought  rational  and  we  do  not  require  for  the 
theory  of  "knowledge"  in  its  primary  stage  that  this  objectivity  be 
more  than  a  center  of  reference  for  "phenomena"  that  we  cannot 
explain  by  the  spontaneous  action  of  ourselves.  We  can  name  it 
according  to  the  uniform  way  in  which  it  acts.  If  it  appears  as  the 
nucleus  of  properties  given  in  sensation  and  exhibiting  no  evidence  of 
an  accompaniment  of  intelligence  we  may  call  it  "  matter."  If  there 
be  reason  to  suppose  that  one  of  these  realities  shows  traces  of  conscious- 
ness and  the  other  does  not,  we  may  call  the  former  "spirit."  We 
may  have  to  distinguish  the  two  only  as  we  distinguish  different  kinds  of 
"  matter  "  and  thus  wait  for  evidence  of  their  ultimate  reduction  to  the 
same  kind  of  reality.  But  the  theory  of  "knowledge"  in  its  primary 
issue  does  not  require  us  to  settle  this  question,  if  it  ever  requires  it  at 
all.  It  is  the  metaphysical  task  to  undertake  the  definition  and  investi- 
gation of  the  nature  of  objective  reality  and  its  relation  in  kind  to  con- 
sciousness. What  I  have  wanted  to  show  in  the  discussion  of  "per- 
ception" is  that  the  very  nature  of  the  cognitive  consciousness  is  to 
"  know  "  more  than  itself,  even  though  the  object  "  known"  have  no 
resemblance  to  the  subject  or  act  of  "  knowledge."  This  is  making 
"  knowledge"  a  process  transcending  itself,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the 
term,  and  vindicates  realism  to  the  extent  of  justifying  the  habit  of 
reckoning  with  the  objective  in  "knowledge"  and  action  quite  as 
much  as  with  the  idealistic  view  of  the  subjective.  Whether  that  objec- 
tive shall  have  anything  spiritual  in  it  will  depend  on  what  it  does  and 
what  we  can  discover  scientifically  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  that  action. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
THEORIES  OF  METAPHYSICS. 

The  classification  of  the  problems  of  science  and  philosophy 
showed  that  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  time  and  space  was  a 
sort  of  propaedeutic  to  the  metaphysics  of  other  reality,  but  not  for  the 
same  reason  that  this  conception  of  the  case  was  maintained  by  Kant. 
The  reason  advanced  here  is  that  which  grows  out  of  the  acceptance 
of  the  Comtean  principle  in  the  determination  of  the  serial  relation  be- 
tween various  sciences.  We  found  that  this  placed  Mathematics  as 
necessary  for  the  investigation  of  later  problems  in  physics  and  chem- 
istry, etc.  Now  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  space  and  time  in 
the  agtiological  problems  of  reflection  has  a  similar  function  to  perform 
in  that  field.  If  we  wish  to  so  express  this  function  as  to  imply  that 
our  system  of  metaphysics  will  be  determined  by  our  views  of  space 
and  time  I  have  no  objection,  as  this  is  perhaps  true  in  a  measure  at 
least.  But  this  will  not  be  true,  if  it  is  to  mean  that  we  cannot  engage 
in  metaphysical  reflection  until  the  problems  of  space  and  time  have 
been  fully  solved.  Metaphysical  reflection  is  not  wholly  dependent 
upon  the  processes  that  make  the  nature  of  space  and  time  known  to 
us,  but  involve  the  application  of  other  categories  as  well,  and  their 
work  is  only  supplemented  and  enlarged  by  our  knowledge  of  the  na- 
ture of  space  and  time,  not  wholly  conditioned  by  it.  Hence  I  here 
treat  Kant's  real  or  apparent  assumptions  in  the  matter  as  only  partly 
true,  and  place  investigations  into  the  nature  of  space  and  time  as 
prior  to  the  metaphysics  of  reality  mainly  because  they  are  simpler  in 
their  contents  and  condition  them  only  in  the  sense  that  they  determine 
certain  aspects  of  them,  not  their  whole  character. 

In  the  analysis  of  metaphysical  problems  Hylology  appears  as  the 
science  of  the  existence  and  nature  of  Matter,  or  the  metaphysics  of 
nature.  Now  to  deal  with  this  as  such  a  scheme  would  imply  would 
require  the  examination  of  investigations  and  discussions  which  I  must 
leave  to  those  whose  special  work  it  has  been  to  treat  the  subject 
exhaustively.  I  can  merely  outline  the  main  conceptions  lying  at  the 
basis  of  such  an  endeavor.  It  is  the  business  of  the  metaphysical  side 
of  Physics  and  Chemistry  to  deal  fully  with  the  problem  of  matter.  I 
shall  take  it  up  here  only  as  it  is  and  has  been  related  to  the  historical 
334 


THEORIES   OF  METAPHYSICS.  335 

discussions  of  philosophers  whose  specialty  has  not  been  physical 
science,  but  reflective  analysis  of  conceptions.  We  are  here  less  con- 
cerned, therefore,  with  the  problems  of  matter  as  the  physicist  has  to 
deal  with  them  than  as  the  philosopher,  so-called,  has  to  deal  with 
them,  and  his  problem  is  to  see  how  far  matter  can  be  used  to  explain 
the  world  questions,  not  merely  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  physical 
science  as  it  is  usually  conceived.  Consequently  I  have  not  to  examine 
here  all  the  subordinate  problems  of  the  physical  sciences,  but  that 
part  of  their  field  which  is  related  to  cosmic  questions  and  the  question 
whether  matter  can  adequately  explain  all  phenomena  whatsoever. 

In  defining  exactly  the  field  which  I  mean  here  to  traverse  I  shall 
have  recourse  to  the  analysis  of  the  theories  of  knowledge  and  reality 
(p.  72).  At  the  close  of  that  analysis  I  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  theories  which  were  excluded  from  each  other  in  that  system  by 
the  strict  application  of  the  logical  principles  of  division  had  been 
closely  associated  with  each  other,  or  even  identical  in  the  history  of 
speculative  thought.  I  have  to  make  some  note  of  that  fact,  though 
the  classification  was  intended  to  define  the  proper  territory  for  the 
appropriate  theories.  That  classification  made  Realism  and  Idealism 
exclusively  epistemological  doctrines  and  in  no  respect  metaphysical, 
that  is  noumenological  theories.  I  mean  to  insist  that  in  any  true  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  this  must  be  maintained  and  that  there  is  no  direct 
and  deductive  highway  from  epistemology  to  metaphysics.  But  how- 
ever true  this  may  be,  it  does  not  forbid  or  excuse  the  philosopher  from 
discussing  points  of  view  under  those  heads  which  have  been  treated 
as  metaphysical  problems,  even  though  this  would  be  regarded  as  a 
transgression  when  the  theories  were  properly  defined.  Though  I 
might  consider  it  proper  to  exclude  Realism  and  Idealism  from  meta- 
physical discussion,  I  cannot  exclude  discussions  which  have  passed 
under  those  names. 

The  simple  reason  for  refusing  to  admit  Idealism  and  Realism  into 
metaphysical  problems  is  the  fact  that  the  former  is  too  equivocal  to 
serve  for  any  clear  thinking  and  the  latter  has  never  been  anything  but 
an  epistemological  theory.  Idealism  is  a  term  that  has  done  duty  for 
opposition  to  both  Realism  and  Materialism,  which  have  never  been 
identified  in  all  their  relations,  while  it  has  also  usually  taken  a  monistic 
view  of  the  world  when  Materialism  has  variously  been  monistic  and 
pluralistic.  This  fact  alone  absolutely  disqualifies  Idealism  for  service 
unless  it  is  strictly  limited  to  a  definite  and  unambiguous  problem,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  consequence  of  the  distinction  which  this  work 
draws  between  epistemological  and  metaphysical  problems.     Exclud- 


336  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ing  Realism  and  Idealism  from  a  place  in  the  right  conception  of 
metaphysical  issues  and  as  wholly  disqualified,  with  the  methods 
usually  employed  in  their  name,  to  pronounce  upon  the  questions 
which  we  have  to  discuss  in  aetiological  and  ontological  problems,  we 
are  left  with  Materialism  and  Spiritualism  as  the  two  antagonistic  doc- 
trines which  must  come  under  consideration.  But  there  are  equivo- 
cations here  also.  The  tabular  analysis  shows  that  the  theories  of 
reality  have  been  divided  into  the  quantitative  and  qualitative,  the  former 
being  further  subdivided  into  monistic  and  the  pluralistic,  and  the  lat- 
ter into  materialistic  and  spiritualistic.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the 
history  of  philosophic  reflection  the  exclusion  does  not  take  place  in 
this  manner.  Monistic  theory  has  sometimes  been  materialistic  and 
sometimes  spiritualistic,  and  pluralistic  theory  the  same,  as  the  analysis 
shows,  or  in  one  form  consistent  with  the  admission  of  a  limited  field 
for  material  "phenomena"  (Dualism).  Consequently  we  may  sub- 
ordinate quantitative  points  of  view  to  the  qualitative  and  exhaust  the 
possible  ways  of  discussing  the  phenomena  of  existence,  the  material- 
istic and  the  spiritualistic.  Scepticism  is  not  admissible  as  a  positive 
theory  of  explanation,  but  only  as  a  method  of  limiting  the  assurance 
which  convictions  may  take  in  regard  to  one  or  the  other  of  these 
theories. 

The  term  Materialism,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  theory,  is 
respectable  enough  not  to  require  any  apology  for  the  use  of  it  to 
denominate  a  metaphysical  theory  of  the  world.  But  to  many  this  will 
not  seem  to  be  the  case  with  the  term  Spiritualism.  I  admit  the 
objections  which  apply  to  its  use  and  lament  the  preconceptions  which 
it  suggests  in  this  age  especially,  as  not  rightly  representing  the  general 
idea  which  is  intended  to  define  its  meaning  in  the  problems  to  be  dis- 
cussed here.  But  in  spite  of  these  objections,  I  think  there  are  reasons 
which  justify  an  attempt  either  to  restore  the  term  to  respectable  philo- 
sophic usage  or  to  instate  it  in  that,  if  it  is  not  strictly  correct  to  speak 
of  restoring  it.  There  are  several  adequate  reasons  for  the  use  of  the 
term.  I  have  repudiated  Idealism  as  not  qualified  to  define  both  an 
epistemological  and  a  metaphysical  problem,  and  the  history  of  its 
actual  usage  shows  that,  even  when  it  opposed  Materialism,  it  has  not 
opposed  always  the  fundamental  implication  for  which  Materialism 
stood,  namely,  the  denial  of  immortality.  Idealism  has  usually  been 
as  silent  as  scepticism  on  that  question,  or  as  positive  against  it  as  any 
dogmatic  materialism.  Consequently  some  term  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  express  the  direct  issues  which  are  raised  by  the  doctine  of  Material- 
ism  in  all  its  relations.     Christianity  took  up  and   defined  a  position 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  337 


which  is  perfectly  clear,  whether  it  be  correct  or  not,  in  regard  to  this 
issue.  It  antagonized  Materialism,  not  on  any  such  grounds  as  the 
epistemological  idealist  opposes  it,  but  on  the  ground  that  it  did  not 
adequately  explain  the  cosmos  and  did  not  permit  what  Christianity 
thought  was  a  fact  evidenced  by  the  resurrection,  namely,  a  future  life. 
The  affirmation  and  denial  of  a  future  life  is  a  clear  issue  faced  and 
discussed  by  the  materialist.  The  opposing  theory  must  recognize  this 
issue,  and  the  term  "idealism"  does  not  do  this.  Now  Christianity 
was  definitely  a  spiritualistic  theory,  and  as  its  interests  still  define  the 
opposition  between  the  theory  that  explains  all  phenomena  as  functions 
of  matter,  and  the  theory  which  maintains  that  something  else  than 
matter  is  required  to  explain  both  the  cosmic  order  and  the  phenomena 
of  consciousness,  we  are  fully  justified  in  choosing  a  term  which 
definitely  recognizes  this  issue.  Besides,  I  may  also  defend  myself  by 
the  usage  of  Mr.  Sully  who  has  restored  the  term  in  his  Psychology  as 
the  fitting  opposite  of  Materialism.  Kant  uses  the  term  "  Spiritualism  " 
in  his  argument  against  Mendelssohn  and  elsewhere  as  the  proper  anti- 
thesis to  materialism.  Liebmann  and  Busse  also  recently  use  it  for  the 
same  purpose.  In  fact  it  is  becoming  a  commonly  accepted  term  among 
many  German  writers.  It  concerns  the  question  whether  material  organ- 
ization can  account  for  the  origin  and  nature  of  consciousness,  and  for 
that  reason  as  well  as  the  traditional  problem  which  has  defined  nearly 
twenty  centuries  of  controversy  it  is  the  only  proper  term  to  describe 
or  imply  the  opposition  to  Materialism  as  a  metaphysical  theory.  The 
issue  has  been  between  the  doctrine  that  matter  and  the  laws  of  its 
action  are  sufficient  to  account  for  all  the  phenomena  of  nature  includ- 
ing those  of  consciousness  and  the  doctrine  that  there  is  a  soul  which 
has  an"  immaterial  "  nature  and  which  is  the  subject  of  mental  activities 
or  functions  precisely  in  the  same  way  that  matter  is  supposed  to  be 
the  subject  of  weight,  color,  density,  motion,  etc.  If  this  issue  had 
been  settled  both  terms  might  be  confined  to  a  historical  question,  but 
it  has  not  been  settled  and  hence  metaphysics  has  still  to  face  the  prob- 
lem, whatever  else  it  may  be  assumed  to  include.  Hence,  in  spite  of 
associations  which  the  last  twenty  years  have  created  and  which  ought 
never  to  have  determined  the  essential  import  of  the  term,  I  decide  for 
the  reason  above  given  to  employ  the  term  Spiritualism  to  denote  the 
proper  metaphysical  opposition  to  what  is  expressed  in  the  term 
Materialism. 

The  antithesis  which  has  prevailed  since  Berkeley  and  Kant  has 
been  that  between  Idealism  and  Materialism.  The  controversy  which 
has  gone  on  in  terms  of  this  antithesis  has  nothing  to  do  with  that 


33'^  27/jE:  problems  of  philosophy. 

which  is  embodied  in  the  opposition  between  Materialism  and  Spirit- 
ualism. The  idealists  have  been  quite  willing  to  allow  the  public  to 
believe  that  it  was  and  is  the  same,  but  a  very  little  intelligence  and 
honesty  will  expose  this  illusion.  The  animosities  which  have  governed 
the  relations  between  science  and  religion  and  the  intolerance  which 
religion  has  always  shown  in  regard  to  freedom  of  thought  have  made 
it  the  interest  of  the  philosopher  to  appropriate  either  the  language  of 
the  religious  party  or  an  attitude  of  hostility  toward  Materialism  with- 
out telling  clearly  what  he  meant  by  it.  The  public  is  easily  duped 
and  the  philosopher  can  escape  persecution  by  tactful  indulgence  in 
the  public  of  its  illusions.  There  ai-e,  of  course,  those  who  deceive 
themselves  in  an  attempt  to  mediate  between  the  two  parties  to  the 
controversy  and  who,  in  their  very  desire  to  get  and  impart  the  best  of 
human  thought  and  endeavor,  may  compromise  the  interests  of  clear 
thinking  by  the  necessity  of  yielding  something  to  the  intolerance  of 
the  religious  mind.  The  influence  of  scientific  theories  and  scepticism 
in  displacing  various  cherished  ideas  of  theology  and  the  rout  of  medi- 
aeval religion  in  matters  like  Ptolemaic  astronomy,  the  doctrine  of 
antipodes,  Cartesian  vortices  in  the  explanation  of  the  motion  of 
celestial  bodies,  special  creation  as  against  evolution,  and  similar  prob- 
lems have  made  it  impossible  to  intelligently  ally  one's  self  against 
science  and  the  scientific  spirit,  while  it  was  equally  impossible  to 
apologize  for  the  old  superstitions  and  traditions  that,  somehow  or 
other,  can  survive  all  defeats  and  in  a  large  measure,  directly  or  in- 
directly, influence  the  policy  of  education  and  limit  its  freedom.  It 
has  always  demanded  that  the  philosopher  shall  attack  Materialism  and 
it  has  not  always  been  wise  enough  to  detect  the  subterfuges  by  which 
this  could  be  done  without  betraying  any  real  sympathy  with  the  con- 
ceptions and  problems  that  interest  the  spiritualist.  Ever  since  Kant 
the  philosopher  has  been  a  perfect  adept  in  gymnastics  of  this  sort, 
though  he  is  not  to  blame  for  the  situation  which  compels  him  to  play 
the  role  of  apparent  hypocrisy,  and  in  fact  has  no  sympathy  at  heart 
with  this  compromise  of  his  intelligence  and  honesty.  But  in  the 
effort  to  preserve  the  intellectual  and  social  values  of  a  spiritualistic 
philosophy  when  he  could  not  defend  its  metaphysics  he  has  been 
obliged  to  put  a  new  meaning  into  old  phrases  in  order  to  postpone  the 
day  of  judgment  and  to  keep  intolerance  at  bay  long  enough  to  obtain 
a  modus  vivendi  for  more  liberal  thought.  His  ethical  ideals  did  not 
differ  from  those  of  the  prevailing  orthodoxy  when  it  came  to  the  prac- 
tical duties  of  life  and  he  could  preserve  and  defend  these  by  putting  a 
moral  under  the  cover  of  a  metaphysical  antithesis,  and  so  the  opposi- 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  339 

tion  between  Materialism  and  Idealism  became  a  distinction,  half  psy- 
chological and  half  ethical,  between  what  may  be  called  Sensationalism 
and  Intellectualism.  Psychologically  he  could  rail  at  the  derivation  of 
"  knowledge  "  from  sensation  and  ethically  against  hedonism,  while 
in  metaphysics  he  could  either  ignore  the  theories  of  physical  science 
as  not  in  his  province  or  take  cover  in  the  wonderful  truth  that  we  can 
only  know  reality  through  consciousness,  and  then  escape  the  other 
half  of  the  problem  by  converting  the  terms  "  soul "  and  "  mind  "  into 
equivalents  for  states  of  consciousness  while  nothing  is  said  about  the 
conversion.  The  language  is  familiar  but  the  nature  of  the  content  is 
not  discovered.  The  voice  is  that  of  Jacob  but  the  hands  are  those  of 
Esau,  while  poor  blind  Isaac  bestows  the  blessing  on  Jacob,  and  does 
not  know  that  he  is  eating  kid  instead  of  venison. 

I  am  not  here  disputing  the  truth  of  Idealism,  but  only  its  relevancy 
to  the  problems  of  metaphysics  as  expressed  in  the  terms  Materialism 
and  Spiritualism  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  I  am  quite  willing,  so 
far  as  the  discussion  at  this  point  is  concerned,  to  admit  the  entire  truth 
of  the  idealistic  view  of  things.  Indeed  if  I  am  allowed  to  define  it  for 
myself  I  would  say  that  I  accept  it  as  incontrovertible  on  either  the 
solipsistic  or  non-solipsistic  conception  of  it,  but  I  should  be  under  no 
illusions  as  to  its  limitations  and  I  should  make  no  profession  of  its 
solvent  qualities.  It  is  very  useful  as  a  form  of  radical  scepticism  and 
as  a  methodological  instrument  for  puzzling  the  uneducated  and  creat- 
ing trouble  in  the  field  of  scientific  dogmatism,  often  as  naive  in  critical 
matters  as  a  peasant,  and  it  preserves  an  impulse  to  respect  the  higher 
types  of  consciousness,  though  only  by  force  of  historical  association. 
But  it  does  nothing  more.  It  solves  absolutely  no  metaphysical  piob- 
lems  whatever.  On  the  contrary,  unless  it  adjusts  itself  to  the  concep- 
tions of  the  very  science  which  it  assumes  to  supplant  it  results  in 
doctrines  like  Hegel's  theory  of  the  tides !  What  the  idealist  never 
seems  to  learn  is  that  a  new  shibboleth  does  not  escape  responsibility 
for  all  the  problems  of  human  reflection.  We  may  resolve  all  things 
into  "  states  of  consciousness  "  or  "  phenomena  "  as  much  as  we  like, 
or  lay  as  much  stress  as  we  please  upon  the  intellectual  as  distinguished 
from  the  sensory  processes,  we  do  not  escape  the  consideration  of  all 
the  old  problems  in  all  their  essential  characteristics,  and  the  relations 
which  were  supposed  by  them  to  subsist  between  "phenomena." 
This  ought  to  be  apparent  in  the  system  of  Hegel  with  its  hideous 
paraphernalia  of  metaphysical  language.  It  is  the  same  and  always 
will  be  the  same  with  any  single  description  of  the  totality  of  existence. 
We  may  take  any  term  we  please  to  represent  the  fundamental  data  of 


340  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

"  knowledge  "  and  think  that  we  have  put  an  end  to  certain  philosophic 
theories,  but  it  will  not  be  long  until  those  theories  have  turned  up  in 
a  new  garb.  Plato  may  undertake  to  refute  "  materialism  "  by  a  doc- 
trine of  "  ideas"  and  then  discover  in  another  generation  that  his  posi- 
tion is  not  different  from  that  of  Lucretius.  We  may  rail  at  "  innate 
ideas"  and  accept  "intuitions."  We  may  limit  "knowledge"  to 
"  experience  "  or  "  phenomena"  and  then  assert  the  existence  of  "at 
priori  conceptions  "  or  laws  of  thought  which  are  not  ' '  phenomena  " 
or  the  products  of  "  experience."  We  may  start  with  sensations  as 
our  elementary  data  with  the  desire  to  escape  metaphysics,  and  land 
in  the  systems  of  Berkeley,  Hume  or  Condillac.  We  may  insistently 
assert  that  we  "  know  only  phenomena"  and  then  proceed  to  give  a 
vast  system  of  philosophy  in  terms  of  matter  and  motion,  or  a  la  Hegel 
ring  the  same  changes  on  "  spirit."  We  may  take  any  term  to  express 
the  nature  of  our  elementary  datum,  and  there  will  be  some  Socrates 
about  to  ask  for  a  definition  and  explanation,  and  then  we  shall  either 
have  to  tear  our  hair  with  poor  Euthydemus  or  calmly  spin  out  a 
metaphysics  with  Plato.  We  may  carefully  limit  "knowledge"  to 
"  experience"  and  exclude  it  from  "things  in  themselves,"  in  order  to 
escape  a  disagreeable  system  of  metaphysics  and  then  produce  a  vast 
system  of  transcendental  philosophy  which  is  neither  as  intelligible  as 
"  experience  "  nor  as  credible  as  "  things  in  themselves." 

The  fundamental  conception  upon  which  the  idealist  bases  his  view 
of  things  and  from  which  he  would  deduce  far-reaching  results  is  his 
notion  of  "  phenomena."  Ever  since  Kant,  and  also  assuming  that  he 
is  equally  describing  the  conception  of  Plato,  the  idealist  insists  upon 
defining  "phenomena"  as  "appearances,"  with  or  without  its  natural 
implication  of  illusion,  but  certainly  with  its  implication  of  subjec- 
tivity, in  some  sense  at  least,  and  its  exclusion  of  objectivity  of  some 
kind.  I  must  dispute  the  claim  that  this  gives  a  complete  account  of 
either  Plato  or  Kant.  Plato  did  not  mean  psychological  "appear- 
ance" by  his  "phenomenon."  His  antithesis  was  between  the  trans- 
ient and  the  permanent :  ours  between  the  subjective  and  the  objective, 
both  possibly  either  transient  or  permanent.  Plato's  system  of  meta- 
physics drew  the  distinction  between  the  sensible  and  supersensible 
realities,  not  between  the  sensible  or  natural  (physical)  and  the  super- 
physical  or  supernatural  (spiritual).  His  supersensible  realities  were 
like  the  Leibnitzian  monads,  except  that  he  did  not  describe  them  as 
immaterial,  and  like  the  Lucretian  atoms,  except  that  he  did  not 
describe  them  in  terms  to  suggest  sensible  qualities.  These  "  ideas," 
"forms,"  manifested    their  existence   by  the  manner  in  which  they 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  341 

arranged  the  elements  of  the  "material"  world,  and  thus  represented 
the  emergence  of  the  supersensible  into  the  sensible,  of  the  invisible 
into  the  visible.  "Appearance"  thus  in  describing  the  Platonic  con- 
ception does  not  mean  that  things  must  be  seen  in  order  to  be  "phe- 
nomena," but  only  that  they  must  take  a  possibly  visible  form  in  order 
to  be  this,  and  this  form  meant  that  they  were  transient  modes,  com- 
plex objects  subject  to  dissolution  while  the  "principle"  that  ar- 
ranged them  remained  permanent.  The  "appearance"  was  the  pas- 
sage from  the  supersensible  to  the  sensible,  not  from  the  actually  un- 
seen to  the  actually  seen ;  from  the  "potential"  to  the  "actual"  in 
the  Aristotelian  phraseology  which  expresses  the  real  conception  of 
Plato.  In  one  condition  they  were  supersensible,  that  is,  not  possibly 
objects  of  sensory  "  experience"  or  even  of  any  other  form  of  "  phe- 
nomenal knowledge."  In  the  "  material  "  condition  they  had  assumed 
a  form  which  made  them  sensible,  that  is  possible  objects  of  "  knowl- 
edge," not  necessarily  actually  present  to  consciousness.  "  Phenom- 
enon "  then  meant  the  condition  in  which  the  process  of  evolution  or 
creation  left  reality,  which  was  in  its  nature  transcendent,  or  it  de- 
scribed the  mode  of  transition  from  the  supersensible  or  transphe- 
nomenal  condition  to  that  in  which  it  became  a  possible  object  of 
♦*  experience."  Consequently  it  represented  the  notion  of  transiency 
as  distinct  from  that  of  permanence.  Subjectivity  was  no  part  of  his 
real  meaning,  in  any  sense  of  excluding  an  objective  reality  causally 
at  the  basis  of  the  facts. 

The  same  meaning  is  characteristic  of  Kant.  He  distinctly  indi- 
cates that  "phenomena"  (Erscheinungen)  are  events  or  changes 
Veranderungen) ,  and  very  frequently  he  describes  them  as  "objects 
of  empirical  intuition  "  and  in  this  way  implies  that  they  are  mere  in- 
ternal states  of  the  mind.  It  is  true  that  he  sometimes  speaks  of  them 
as  "mere  presentations"  (blose  Vorstellungen),  but  in  addition  to  the 
elastic  import  of  "  Vorstellung,"  the  subjective  import  of  which 
Vaihinger  admits  contradicts  other  definitions  of  "  phenomena"  as 
"  objects  of  intuition,"  we  must  remember  that  there  is  perhaps  not  a 
single  fundamental  conception  in  Kant's  system  which  is  not  impli- 
cated with  various  equivocal  imports,  that  enable  the  reader  to  put  any 
construction  he  pleases  upon  his  position.  It  is  certain  that  Kant  does 
not  say  that  "  phenomena  "  are  merely  states  of  consciousness,  a  form 
of  statement  which  directly  means  to  exclude  the  objective  from  con- 
sideration as  a  necessary  part  of  "  knowledge,"  while  presentation, 
sensation,  etc.,  do  not  make  it  clear  whether  this  limitation  is  implied 
or  not,  except  to  those  who  have  definitely  indicated  this  as  a  part  of 


34 2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

their  definition  and  conception  of  the  facts.  But  this  point  of  view 
was  not  so  clear  at  Kant's  time  as  in  ours,  even  though  it  may  be  the 
tendency  of  his  thought  to  produce  it.  The  tendency  is  clear  in 
Berkeley  and  Hume,  and  it  was  the  natural  implication  of  the  Kantian 
system.  But  Kant  did  not  wholly  break  away  from  the  philosophic 
conceptions  of  his  earlier  period  and  he  possibly  tried  to  make  the 
term  "  phenomenon"  do  service  for  both  the  idea  of  purely  subjective 
states  and  the  objective  idea  of  events  or  change.  He  is  certainly  not 
prepared  for  any  solipsistic  interpretation  of  the  term,  and  in  his  at- 
tempt to  refute  Idealism  he  shows  this,  whether  we  regard  him  as  con- 
sistent or  not  in  this  position.  The  ambiguity  in  Kant's  conception  is 
caused  by  the  fact  that  he  lived  in,  and  in  a  large  measure  determined, 
the  transition  from  the  Platonic  to  the  modern  view  of  reality.  This 
was  effected  mainly  by  the  Philosophy  of  Leibnitz  which  exercised  a 
far  larger  influence  on  Kant  than  either  he  could  control  or  his  readers 
can  superficially  discover.  His  conception  of  "phenomena"  was 
borrowed  partly  from  the  usage  of  Plato  and  partly  from  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Leibnitzian  philosophy  on  his  way  of  conceiving  things. 
Leibnitz  had  constructed  his  system  with  the  same  motives  as  Plato, 
namely,  to  refute  "  materialism,"  and  to  do  this  he  had  a  system  of 
supersensible  realities.  His  monads  were  spaceless  points  of  force 
and  hence  could  not  be  objects  of  sensory  u  knowledge."  Though 
they  were  supersensible,  and  even  possessed  in  various  degrees  super- 
physical  properties,  they  could  work  changes  or  produce  effects,  but 
without  transmitting  them  to  other  monads.  Their  action  was  thus 
wholly  subjective,  but  Leibnitz  provided  machinery  to  make  this  con- 
form to  the  nature  of  external  reality.  As  the  action  of  each  monad 
was  the  same  it  ' '  mirrored  "  or  represented  in  each  case  the  nature 
of  objective  monads  by  virtue  of  the  identity  of  all  of  them  in 
kind.  The  harmonious  action  of  the  system  was  not  accounted  for 
as  in  the  mechanical  system,  namely,  by  transeunt  action,  injluxus 
fl/iysicus,  causa  materialis,  but  by  causa  occasionalism  whatever 
that  meant.  The  point  here  to  be  noted  is  the  conception  of 
purely  subjective  action  in  the  explanation  of  genesis.  Now  Kant 
returned  to  the  materialistic  position  in  his  "receptivity  of  sense." 
This  assumed  the  influence  upon  the  subject  of  action  external  to  it. 
The  legitimacy  of  this  procedure  is  not  the  question,  but  only  the  fact. 
Leibnitz  could  not  get  beyond  the  subject  in  his  conception  of  activity. 
Kant,  whether  legitimately  or  not,  did  get  beyond  it,  and  hence  he  had 
to  admit  the  existence  of  "phenomena"  beside  those  of  the  internal 
world,  and  these  were  the  objects  of  intuition,  something  more  than 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  343 


internal  states  or  subjective  "phenomena."  Now  as  "  noumena " 
could  not  be  "  known,"  these  being  in  reality  the  Leibnitz ian  monads 
incapable  of  acting  as  such  on  other  monads  or  subjects  by  any  tran- 
seunt  action,  Kant,  pressed,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  impossibility  of 
calling  the  external  reality  a  "  noumenal"  fact  and,  on  the  other,  by  th;. 
necessity  of  supposing  this  external  reality  as  a  condition  of  making 
sensation  and  its  genesis  rational,  could  only  call  it  a  "phenomenon" 
without  making  it  a  state  of  consciousness  of  the  subject,  even  though 
he  also  considered  consciousness  a  "phenomenon"  of  the  subject. 
Hence  besides  states  of  consciousness  he  assumed  a  type  of  ' '  phenom- 
ena "  which  were  events  rather  than  "  appearances,"  except  as  modes 
of  reality  between  "noumena"  and  subjective  "  phenomena."  But 
in  spite  of  this,  his  Leibnitzian  presupposition  could  not  prevent  the 
rise  of  an  equivocation  in  the  conception  of  "phenomena"  as  purely 
subjective  events,  consciousness  being  the  assumed  prius  of  what  is 
"known."  What  Kant  ought  to  have  made  clear  was  that  he  was 
dealing  with  three  "  worlds"  so  to  speak,  the  world  of  "  noumena," 
the  world  of  external  "  phenomena,"  and  the  world  of  internal  "  phe- 
nomena." The  first  two  of  these  were  conceived  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  Plato  and  Lucretius.  Plato  and  Lucretius  had  a  supersen- 
sible world,  the  one  of  "  ideas  "  and  the  other  of  "  atoms."  Both  also 
had  a  sensible  world  which  was  a  compound,  organic  complex  or  union 
of  the  elementary  units  of  the  supersensible  world,  and  was  on  that 
account  transient  or  "  phenomenal,"  that  is  perishable.  The  "  noum- 
enal"  or  supersensible  world,  "ideas"  or  "atoms,"  was  not  perish- 
able. The  antithesis  was  between  the  transient  and  the  permanent. 
But  Kant  had  to  start  with  a  later  and  different  antithesis,  which  only 
partly  coincided  with  the  old  one.  This  was  the  antithesis  between 
the  subjective  and  the  objective,  the  internal  and  the  external.  He  had 
two  objective  worlds,  the  world  of  "  noumena,"  or  monads,  which 
could  not  act  on  one  another,  or  transmit  their  actions  (motions)  to  other 
monads  and  so  could  not  be  "  known  "  through  causal  influence  which 
was  the  sole  condition  of  sensible  "knowledge."  But  assuming  that 
sensory  "  experience"  was  occasioned  by  causal  action  from  without, 
as  he  distinctly  states,  Kant  had  to  have  an  external  world  beside  that 
of  "  noumena"  and  also  in  addition  to  that  of  internal  "  phenomena," 
as  the  anthropocentric  method  of  investigation  since  Descartes  had 
forced  upon  thought  the  antithesis  between  subject  and  object.  Now 
if  Kant  had  shown  that  his  external  world  of  "  phenomena"  affecting 
sense  sustained  the  same  relation  to  the  "  noumenal  "  world  that  Plato's 
world  of  sense  sustained  to  that  of  "ideas,"  or  Lucretius'  world  of 


344  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

compounds  sustained  to  that  of  "  atoms,"  we  should  understand  what 
he  might  think  of  a  causal  activity  not  directly  expressing  the  internal 
action  of  the  monads  but  yet  proceeding  from  without  the  subject 
"experiencing"  its  effects,  and  we  could  still  have  the  distinction 
between  internal  and  external  "  phenomena  "  without  making  them  all 
alike  in  any  other  aspect  than  their  eventual  character.  But  Kant 
never  made  clear  what  he  meant  by  his  external  world,  except  that  he 
called  it  "  phenomenal"  which  he  also  called  the  internal,  though  he 
regarded  the  latter  as  causally  related  to  the  former.  Consequently 
with  the  uselessness  of  his  "  noumenal "  world  and  the  connotation  of 
the  term  "  phenomenal  "  applying  alike  to  the  internal  and  external, 
with  a  tendency  of  philosophy  to  return  to  the  Leibnitz ian  notion  of 
subjective  activity,  subsequent  conceptions  moved  in  the  direction  of 
an  absolute  idealism  in  which  all  things  were  states  of  consciousness 
and  both  worlds  of  Kant's  external  "phenomena"  and  the  world  of 
"  noumena,  "  were  abandoned,  whilst  adoring  philosophers  trace  the 
lineage  of  idealism  to  Kant  instead  of  Leibnitz  !  Kant  would  not  de- 
cide finally  which  master  he  would  follow,  Leibnitz  or  Plato,  but 
fluctuated  between  solipsism  and  dualism  in  a  way  that  left  the  inter- 
pretation of  his  "  phenomena"  dubious.  But  it  is  quite  apparent  that 
there  is  as  much  to  say  in  favor  of  their  being  trans-subjective,  though 
non-noumenal,  as  in  favor  of  their  subjective  nature,  with  the  certi- 
tude that  Kant  intended,  whether  consistently  or  not,  to  assume  an  ex- 
ternal world  other  than  mental  states  which  he  conceived  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  what  Hamilton  calls  "  hypothetic  realism,"  though 
he  did  not  conceive  it  as  a  product  of  inference.  He  was  too  much 
under  the  influence  of  Leibnitz'  "  intellectual  intuition,"  even  after  he 
denied  it,  to  take  the  position  that  the  "  knowledge  "  of  external  real- 
ity was  inferential,  and  too  thoroughly  enslaved  by  the  formal  func- 
tions of  the  categories  and  the  subjective  nature  (not  the  origin)  of 
sensory  states  to  make  the  cognition  of  the  external  world  any  more 
direct,  and  hence  he  left  it  asserted  but  not  explained,  except  in  so  far 
as  the  equivocal  term  "  phenomenon"  described  it. 

But  grant  that  one  side  of  Kant's  position  was  the  only  one,  namely 
that  which  apparently  identified  "phenomena"  with  states  of  con- 
sciousness and  that  subsequent  idealism  rightly  represented  him,  would 
we  by  that  resource  escape  the  problem  of  materialism  as  it  has  been 
conceived  from  time  immemorial?  Does  the  statement,  or  even  truth, 
of  idealism  that  all  we  "  know"  are  states  of  consciousness  put  an  end 
to  explanatory  processes  and  methods  of  ascertaining  or  interpreting 
the   meaning   and    implications    of    "phenomena"?     By  no    means. 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  345 

States  of  consciousness,  even  if  they  are  the  only  events  in  the  world, 
the  only  world  we  "  know,"  are  likely  to  call  for  explanation  of  some 
kind.  They  quite  as  readily  start  definition  and  inquiry  as  any  other 
supposed  events  or  facts,  and  we  have  only  to  look  at  Kant  himself  to 
see  that,  even  if  he  did  limit  "phenomena"  to  subjective  states,  he 
accepted  the  processes  of  explanation  involved  in  the  use  of  the  cate- 
gories and  employed  all  the  orthodox  language  of  metaphysics  in  the 
analysis  of  causality  with  the  deliberate  intention  of  refuting  "  em- 
piricism "  and  the  scepticism  founded  upon  it.  But  conceding  that 
any  ad  hominem  appeal  or  argument  would  be  a  misconception  of 
idealism,  there  remains  the  fact  that  states  of  consciousness  do  not  ex- 
plain themselves  and  only  elicit  investigation  instead  of  preventing  it. 
They  have  at  least  to  be  defined.  If  we  define  them  as  "phenomena," 
these  having  previously  been  defined  as  "  states  of  consciousness,"  we 
commit  the  circulus  in  dejiniendo  which  clear  and  rational  thinking 
will  not  permit,  unless  we  wish  to  confess  defeat,  and  if  we  define 
them  as  events,  activities,  functions  of  the  subject,  we  admit  into  con- 
ception and  ' '  knowledge  "  a  fact  which  is  not  itself  a  ' '  phenomenon  " 
by  using  the  causal  principle,  and  thus  all  the  old  etiological  points  of 
view  again  come  into  consideration,  especially  if  we  admit  any  distinc- 
tion of  kind  between  one  class  of  mental  states  and  another,  such  as 
memories  and  sensations,  associations  and  sensations,  or  thoughts  and 
sensations.  If  we  admit  an  etiological  or  noumenological  subject 
there  is  no  a  priori  objection  to  the  possibility  of  transcending  "phe- 
nomena "  in  the  other  direction,  namely,  an  external  object.  It  is  only 
a  question  of  the  way  in  which  we  feel  obliged  to  explain  the  genesis 
of  sensation  as  events  whose  course  we  cannot  determine  wholly  at  will. 
Anything  but  circular  definition,  therefore,  only  brings  back  all  the 
modes  of  inquiry  and  explanation  which  the  idealist  tried  to  put  an  end 
to  by  his  "all  we  know,"  a  mere  subterfuge  for  escaping  a  problem 
which  only  reappears  like  the  clown  or  juggler  whom  we  thought  we 
had  safely  tied  and  locked  in  a  box.  This  fact  is  quite  apparent  in  the 
systems  of  Fichte,  Schelling  and  Hegel  who  either  dressed  up  phenom- 
enalism in  noumenal  terms  and  passed  it  off  for  orthodoxy,  or  brought 
in  at  the  back  door  the  metaphysics  which  Kant  had  put  out  at  the 
front. 

There  is  another  way  of  stating  the  case.  Materialism  and  Spirit- 
ualism endeavor  to  determine  the  temporal  and  causal  relations  of  facts, 
the  one  limiting  the  "phenomena"  of  consciousness  to  material  con- 
nections and  the  other  extending  it  beyond  these.  Now  there  are  at 
least  two  facts  which  show  that  Idealism  does  not  escape  the  necessity 


346  THE  PR OBLEMS    OF  PHIL  OSOPH  Y. 

of  discussing  the  questions  involved  in  that  problem,  nor  when  proved 
does  it  eliminate  the  materialistic  conception  of  the  case,  which  does 
not  depend  upon  the  definition  and  conception  of  "matter"  formed 
but  upon  the  relation  between  it,  however  defined  and  conceived,  and 
the  consciousness  in  question.  The  idealist  will  not  endure  solipsism, 
and  consequently  he  admits  that  there  is  something  that  transcends  the 
individual  consciousness  which  asserts  or  accepts  the  existence  of  either 
this  trans-subjective  impersonal  object  or  of  personal  consciousness  other 
than  the  one  "knowing."  Whether  he  admits  more  than  other  social 
units  or  not,  he  ssumes  realities  which  are  in  some  causal  relation  to 
his  own  mental  states  and  the  question  will  be  to  determine  what  that 
is  which  is  thus  the  prius  of  his  own  functional  action  and  which  may 
determine  the  value  and  destiny  of  his  own  consciousness.  Again, 
when  he  admits,  as  Kant  does,  an  external  world,  whether  "  phenom- 
enal"  or  "noumenal,"  in  causal  relation  to  consciousness  and  condi- 
tioning its  occurrences,  even  if  it  does  not  determine  from  without  its 
constitution,  he  must  face  the  question  of  its  temporal  relation  to  the 
group  of  "  phenomena  "  with  which  it  is  associated,  and  no  amount  of 
definition  or  reiteration  of  the  truism  that  "  all  we  know  is  states  of 
consciousness  "  will  solve  that  problem.  The  silence  of  the  idealist 
upon  the  questions  of  God  and  immortality  showsthis  beyond  doubt. 
If  the  existence  of  God  and  immortality  followed  from  this  admission  the 
idealist  would  be  quite  ready  to  admit  it,  as  his  interest  lies  in  affirm- 
ing rather  than  denying  these  doctrines.  But  if  he  limits  that  temporal 
relation,  on  the  one  hand,  or  admits  solipsism,  on  the  other,  his  silence 
is  evidence  that  he  does  not  accept  the  existence  of  God  and  immor- 
tality, while  the  public  will  not  permit  him  to  positively  deny  them. 
1  ^e  consequence  is  that  we  have  to  discuss  Idealism  as  a  problem 
within,  not  prior  to,  subsequent  not  antecedent  to,  the  nature  and  re- 
lations of  consciousness.  The  real  function  of  Idealism  is  to  introduce 
scepticism  and  criticism  into  the  naive  assumptions  of  "  common 
sense  "  whether  of  the  scientific  or  unscientific  mind,  and  not  to  deduce 
from  its  postulate  about  the  ordo  cognitionis  any  ready-made  meta- 
physics which  would  make  this  the  ordo  essendi  without  further  argu- 
ment than  the  a  priori  assumption  of  the  very  consciousness  which  has 
to  be  accounted  for.  It  may  say  what  it  pleases  about  the  value  and 
teleological  meaning  of  consciousness,  but  unless  it  is  frankly  solipsistic 
and  accepts  the  Leibnitzian  statement  of  its  case  it  must  subordinate  its 
entire  speculations  to  the  conclusions  established  regarding  the  causal 
relation  of  its  "  phenomena  "  to  the  realities  which  that  causal  relation 
assumes  are  the  prius  of  its  own  existence  and  certainly  its  limit,  if  the 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  347 

Lucretian  conception  and  that  of  modern  science  be  the  standard  of 
judgment. 

The  actual  problems  of  history  that  were  embodied  in  the  terms 
Materialism  and  Spiritualism  concerned  the  origin  and  destiny  of 
"  phenomena,"  their  causes  and  end,  whether  we  interpret  that  "end" 
as  a  purpose  or  as  a  result  toward  which  various  movements  tended  or 
converged.  They  cannot  be  evaded  by  any  verbal  hocus  pocus  which 
tries  to  make  a  name  like  Idealism  as  sacred  and  inviolable  as  the 
ancient  name  of  God.  Turning  up  the  nose  and  screaming  when  some 
one  uses  the  word  "  materialism "  sympathetically  will  neither  elim- 
inate the  problem  indicated  nor  justify  and  elucidate  the  higgledy  pig- 
gledy  phrases  with  which  the  idealist  mystifies  science  and  pacifies 
religion.  The  problems  of  causal  origin  and  destiny  still  thrust  them- 
selves forward  as  the  primary  considerations  in  all  estimates  of  value 
and  meaning.  They  began  in  cosmology  and  they  terminate  in  it. 
The  psychological  interpretation  of  them  has  been  a  diversion  in  every 
sense  of  the  term,  and  though  it  determines  an  important  point  of  view 
for  disturbing  the  lethargy  and  self-complacency  of  sensational  dogma- 
tism it  does  not  determine  the  order,  grounds,  tendencies  and  causal 
explanation  of  external  nature.  This  problem  of  cause  and  end,  origin 
and  destiny,  aetiology  and  teleology,  conditions  and  meaning,  as  some 
would  call  it,  of  all  facts,  including  the  "phenomena"  of  conscious- 
ness, is  not  determined  by  any  such  antithesis  as  Sensationalism  and 
Intellectualism,  or  Realism  and  Idealism,  or  by  exalting  the  order  of 
our  "knowledge"  as  if  we  were  determining  thereby  the  order  of 
nature.  Sensationalism  and  Intellectualism  represent  an  ethical  and 
psychological  distinction  of  function  in  regard  to  values.  Realism 
and  Idealism  represent  an  epistemological  distinction  in  regard  to  dite 
modes  by  which  objects  are  "  known "  and  their  values  determined. 
But  neither  of  these  methods  predetermine  conclusion  in  the  cosmo- 
logical  problems  of  matter  and  spirit,  or  the  causal  agencies  of  the 
cosmos  and  the  teleological  problems  of  consciousness.  Materialism 
and  Spiritualism,  as  I  conceive  them,  represent  precisely  the  antithesis 
which  history  has  determined  between  the  theory  which  holds  that  the 
organic  world  represents  the  origin  and  destiny  of  all  "  phenomena  " 
whatsoever,  and  the  theory  which  tries  to  make  an  exception  to  this 
origin  of  the  "phenomena"  of  consciousness.  They  represent  the 
two  different  ways  in  which  the  "phenomena"  of  nature  and  con- 
sciousness are  explained  serologically  and  teleologically,  the  one 
affirming  and  the  other  denying  transmaterial  reality  and  teleological 
order  or  meaning.     The  materialist  explains  all  "  phenomena"  as  the 


348  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

resultant  of  mechanical  action,  the  composition  of  the  "forces  of 
nature."  The  spiritualist,  though  he  admits  the  existence  of  a  me- 
chanical order  and  its  forces,  maintains  that  physical  "  phenomena  " 
do  not  constitute  the  whole  of  "  nature,"  that  mental  "  phenomena  " 
are  not  physical,  and  that  they  must  have  an  explanation  in  something 
not  material  in  its  nature.  He  accounts  for  the  "  phenomena"  of  con- 
sciousness by  what  he  calls  the  "soul,"  a  reality  which  is  or  is  sup- 
posed to  be  immaterial  and  whose  functional  activity,  however  it  may 
be  related  to  matter  as  an  occasional  cause  of  its  occurrence,  is  not 
constituted  by  material  action  and  in  so  far  independent  of  it  that  it 
might  continue  its  action  without  that  occasioning  cause.  Imitating 
and  insisting  upon  monism,  there  might  be  a  theory  supposing  that  all 
"phenomena"  were  spiritual  in  nature  and  none  in  reality  material. 
This  would  be  the  absolute  contradictory  of  Materialism.  But  such 
a  theory  would  or  might  be  identical  with  what  is  meant  by  Materialism 
and  would  leave  unsolved  the  problems  which  are  indicated  by  the 
antithesis  between  materialism  and  spiritualism,  as  it  is  not  the  name 
which  determines  the  issue,  but  the  facts  indicated  by  it.  The  real 
question  is  not  what  we  shall  call  the  realities  or  forces  of  existence, 
but  what  are  the  facts  of  the  case  and  what  things  do  or  how  do 
they  act.  In  so  far  as  mere  terms  are  concerned  "  matter"  is  as  good 
as  "spirit"  and  "spirit"  is  no  better  than  "matter."  We  might  use 
the  term  "spirit"  and  have  the  facts  that  are  associated  with  what  is 
now  called  "  matter,"  and  the  issues  would  remain  as  they  are.  The 
real  question  is  to  account  for  certain  "phenomena"  which  we  call 
mental  and  which  we  find  associated  with  certain  other  "phenomena" 
which  we  call  physical  and  which  are  presumably  the  resultant  of 
composition.  Are  the  latter  to  be  classed  with  the  former  in  origin  and 
kind  or  not  ?     That  is  the  issue. 

We  observe  certain  events  which  result  from  the  composition  of 
*'  forces,"  say  the  fluidity  of  water  and  power  to  quench  fire  from  the 
composition  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen  ;  the  luminosity  of  fire  from  the 
union  under  certain  conditions  of  two  gases  that  are  invisible ;  the  fall 
of  an  unsupported  object  under  the  attraction  of  gravitation ;  the 
motion  of  a  ball  in  response  to  impact  or  propulsion.  Now  it  makes 
no  difference  what  we  call  these  gases,  "  realities,"  "forces,"  whether 
"  matter"  or  "  spirit."  The  explanation  or  meaning  of  the  facts  will 
be  the  same  in  either  case,  unless  we  can  prove  that  there  is  a  radical 
difference  between  them  and  the  "  phenomena  "  of  consciousness  and 
insist  that  "  spirit  "  implies  consciousness.  But  this  would  leave  these 
distinguished  "phenomena"   still   unexplained,   because   of  their  as- 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  349 

sumed  difference  in  kind.  What  really  interests  us  is  the  fact  that  the 
observed  "phenomena"  are  actually  or  apparently  the  contingent 
effects  of  a  certain  combination  of  what  we  choose  to  call  "forces," 
realities,  atoms,  substances,  modes  of  motion,  etc.  The  mere  name 
which  we  give  these  things  whose  actions  or  interactions  give  rise  to 
the  "phenomena"  in  question  is  of  no  importance  whatever.  The 
real  questions  are  whether  there  are  any  radical  distinctions  of  kind 
between  the  "phenomena"  within  our  "knowledge"  and  what  the 
relations  of  any  or  all  of  them  to  the  things  named.  If  they  are  all 
alike  and  the  resultant  of  composition  or  interaction,  or  if  unlike  and 
still  such  resultants,  we  shall  take  one  view  of  their  nature,  relations, 
and  destiny ;  but  whether  alike  or  unlike,  if  they  are  not  such  result- 
ants we  will  take  another  view  of  their  character.  If  "  phenomena  " 
are  the  effects  of  composition,  their  existence  and  value  depend  wholly 
upon  this  composition  and  disappear  with  dissolution.  If  they  are  not 
the  resultant  of  this  composition  their  ground  and  value  must  be  sought 
in  some  other  system.     All  this  is  axiomatic. 

Now  materialism  has  stood  for  the  doctrine  that  all  "  phenomena" 
whatsoever  are  the  resultant  of  composition  from  elements  called  mat- 
ter, functions  of  material  compounds,  still  retaining  the  term  "  mat- 
ter "  for  the  compounds  as  well  as  for  the  elements.  Whether  its  rea- 
sons for  calling  the  elements  and  their  organic  compounds  by  the  same 
name  are  good  or  not  makes  no  difference  to  the  general  question. 
The  main  point  is  to  see  that,  whatever  the  nature  of  the  elements, 
facts  appear  as  the  resultant  of  composition  that  were  not  existent  or 
apparent  before.  Now  spiritualism  does  not  deny,  or  certainly  does 
not  need  to  deny,  that  this  doctrine  applies  to  "  forces"  called  "  mat- 
ter," but  it  denies  that  consciousness  is  the  resultant  of  the  composition 
of  these  elements,  or  that  it  is  a  function  of  "  matter"  as  a  compound. 
It  seeks  to  maintain  that  there  is  some  other  reality  than  mere  "  mat- 
ter," and  that  consciousness  is  a  function  of  this  immaterial  reality, 
calling  it  "immaterial"  because  it  reveals  none  of  the  ponderable 
qualities  of  composite  "  matter,"  which  is  all  that  we  sensibly  know. 
On  this  ground,  if  the  evidence  of  the  fact  is  sufficient,  it  can  suppose 
consciousness  to  be  independent  of  material  composition  and  so  not  to 
have  its  existence  and  destiny  determined  by  the  accidents  of  change 
and  composition  in  matter. 

Now  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  spiritualism  gives  a  meaning,  as  it  is 
called,  to  consciousness  which  the  materialistic  theory  cannot  do 
This  "  meaning"  is  that  it  is  the  activity  of  another  subject  than  the 
organism,  the  evidence  for  this  being  variously  stated  in  terms  of  the 


35 O  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

difference  between  physical  and  mental  "  phenomena,  "  or  facts  prov- 
ing that  this  subject  exists  apart  from  the  body.  Whether  it  is  cor- 
rect or  not  is  not  the  question,  but  only  its  conception  and  the  mode 
by  which  it  undertakes  to  define  and  prove  its  claims.  The  material- 
istic hypothesis  can  give  consciousness  no  other  meaning  or  perma- 
nence than  the  organism  with  which  it  is  actually  associated.  What- 
ever place  is  assigned  it  in  the  group  of  "phenomena"  connected 
with  the  body,  whether  as  their  "  end,  "  or  as  means  to  their  activity, 
or  as  one  of  a  system  of  reciprocally  related  facts,  it  can  have  no  mean- 
ing extending  beyond  the  existence  of  that  of  which  it  is  assumed  to 
be  a  "  phenomenal  "  function.  Making  it  the  resultant  of  composition, 
as  it  does  other  functions  of  the  organism,  digestive,  circulative,  respira- 
tory, secretive,  motor,  etc.,  the  materialistic  theory  must  regard  it  as 
equally  transitory.  But  spiritualism,  if  it  has  satisfactory  evidence  as  to 
the  facts  claimed,  has  a  philosophic  basis  on  behalf  of  the  claim  for  the 
permanence  of  consciousness  beyond  the  dissolution  of  the  organism  in 
the  conception  that  consciousness  is  not  a  function  of  the  body,  that  is, 
is  not  a  resultant  of  composition  of  material  elements.  If  it  is  not  such 
a  resultant  it  cannot  be  affected  by  the  decomposition  of  the  organism, 
no  matter  what  other  account  of  it  may  be  demanded.  What  its 
meaning  would  be  in  such  a  view  of  it  would  have  to  be  settled  by 
other  considerations  than  those  of  the  present  physical  sciences.  This 
again  is  a  truism  but  requires  statement  in  order  to  use  it  as  a  major 
premise  for  certain  further  animadversions. 

Now  what  I  wish  to  contend  for  here  is  that  all  teleological  and 
ethical  interpretations  of  consciousness,  as  well  as  all  other  facts  and 
"  phenomena,  "  must  depend  wholly  upon  the  conclusions  in  regard 
to  their  causes.  That  is  to  say,  the  teleological  view  of  things  is  con- 
ditioned and  wholly  conditioned  by  the  etiological.  It  is  not  inde- 
pendent of  it,  as  the  idealist  would  have  us  believe  at  times.  We 
cannot  say  that,  whatever  the  cause,  any  given  "  end  "  or  consequence 
will  hold  true,  because  that  "  end  "  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  the 
causes  that  lead  to  it.  If  the  causes  cease  acting  the  effect  ceases  to 
exist,  if  the  effect  is  a  mere  "  phenomenon."  The  purpose,  value,  and 
persistence  of  any  fact  is  dependent  upon  the  conditions  that  deter- 
mine its  nature.  Functional  activity  cannot  persist  beyond  the  exist- 
ence of  the  subject  of  which  it  is  an  activity.  A  subject  once  formed, 
created,  or  organized  may  subsist  indefinitely,  or  even  permanently, 
if  nothing  occurs  to  disturb  its  integrity,  but  if  this  subject  be  either 
by  accident  or  by  nature  a  transitory  one,  its  property  and  functions 
are  equally  so. 


THEORIES    OF  ME l^A PHYSICS.  35  l 

I  have  a  lighted  candle  before  me.  I  do  not  say  that  I  have  myself 
lighted  it,  but  that  the  burning  candle  in  some  way  is  an  object  of 
consciousness.  This  bare  knowledge  may  not  suggest  that  the  light  or 
luminosity  is  an  incident  with  any  less  persistence  than  the  materials 
out  of  which  the  taper  is  made.  The  luminosity  might  seem  to  be  as 
permanent  and  as  essential  a  property  of  the  taper  as  the  color  or  hard- 
ness of  it,  so  far  as  my  present  consciousness  is  concerned.  But  sup- 
pose that  the  wind  blows  the  flame  out  and  I  find  myself  with  the  taper 
showing  no  luminosity  but  having  the  same  color  and  resistance  as 
before.  I  have  conclusive  evidence  that  the  luminosity  is  not  a  neces- 
sary accompaniment  or  consequence  of  the  remaining  properties,  as 
well  as  not  a  part  of  them,  as  they  appear.  I  find  that  in  spite  of  their 
appearance,  as  before,  the  light  had  disappeared  as  a  consequence  of 
the  causal  action  of  the  wind,  and  will  be  treated  as  an  incidental  con- 
dition or  state  of  the  taper,  certainly  not  an  effect  of  what  remains  to 
consciousness.  But  now  if  some  one  comes  along  with  a  burning 
match  and  relights  it  the  taper  shows  its  luminosity  again,  and  I  have 
the  same  phenomenon  as  before.  But  what  I  chiefly  observe  in  such 
a  case  is  that  the  flame  this  time  has  a  beginning  in  time,  just  as  its 
disappearance  by  the  wind  indicated  that  it  had  an  end.  Before  this 
disappearance  it  might  not  have  had  a  beginning  in  so  far  as  my  "  ex- 
perience" was  concerned,  and  after  its  extinction  it  might  permanently 
cease  to  exist.  In  the  former  case  it  might  have  had  an  indefinite  or 
infinite  past  existence,  and  in  the  latter  it  might  never  again  have  a 
future  existence,  in  spite  of  its  past.  Also,  in  so  far  as  my  "  experi- 
ence "  is  concerned,  once  existing  it  might  have  a  permanent  existence, 
in  spite  of  its  actual  origin  in  time,  if  the  law  of  inertia  be  true.  I  can 
tell  nothing  about  one  or  the  other  alternative  without  further  investi- 
gation, if  at  all.  Now  it  is  the  reappearance  of  the  light  that  gives  me 
proof  that  the  luminosity  has  a  beginning  in  that  particular  case,  and 
it  suggests  at  least  the  suspicion  that  it  had  a  beginning  in  the  first 
place.  But  whether  it  implies  this  or  not  is  indifferent  to  the  suggestion 
that  arises  from  the  perception  of  its  origin  in  the  second  instance. 
This  origin  suggests  that  there  is  some  other  cause  than  the  static 
qualities  of  color  and  resistance  that  have  persisted  through  the 
changes  involved  in  the  appearance,  disappearance  and  reappearance 
of  the  light.  We  are  at  once  set  to  work  to  inquire  what  the  real 
cause  of  the  light  is.  This  cannot  be  the  lighted  match  alone,  causa 
occasionalis ■,  because  that  has  gone  out  by  supposition  while  the  taper 
continues  to  burn.  Hence  I  seek  in  some  conditions  of  the  material 
taper  an  explanation  of  the  luminosity.     Finallv,  I  discover  that  the 


35 2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

candle  is  composed  of  carbon  in  a  certain  form  and  the  air  of  oxygen, 
and  that  the  union  of  carbon  and  oxygen  under  the  proper  conditions 
will  produce  a  light.  The  luminosity  is  thus  explained  as  an  incident 
of  composition,  a  process  involving  the  atomization  of  the  carbon  and 
the  union  with  it  of  the  oxygen  to  form  carbonic  acid.  The  light  is 
thus  found  to  be  a  "phenomenon,"  a  fact  that  begins  and  ends  with 
the  act  of  the  decomposition  of  the  taper.  It  continues  only  so  long  as 
this  process  continues.  When  the  organism  known  as  the  taper  has 
been  dissolved,  that  is,  separated  into  its  elements,  the  "phenom- 
enon "  comes  to  an  end.  It  no  more  exists.  Its  destiny  is  determined 
by  the  termination  of  the  organism  of  which  it  was  a  function  in  that 
act  of  decomposition.  It  has  no  other  meaning  or  "end"  than  that 
which  is  determined  by  the  nature  and  destiny  of  the  organism  of 
which  it  is  an  incident.  At  the  same  time  the  properties  of  color  and 
resistance  have  also  disappeared  from  all  sensible  "knowledge,"  and 
for  all  that  we  should  know,  except  for  the  proof  of  the  indestructi- 
bility of  matter  in  the  gravity  of  the  elements,  the  very  substance  of 
the  taper  has  also  disappeared  or  been  annihilated.  Its  "  phenom- 
enal" modes  have  certainly  been  annihilated,  never  to  reappear, 
unless  some  accident  or  creative  act  or  "law  of  nature"  may  reinstate 
the  combination  of  elements  and  circumstances  that  will  reproduce  the 
"  phenomena  "  that  we  have  been  describing. 

We  have  in  this  detailed  illustration  an  application,  in  parvo,  of  the 
whole  materialistic  hypothesis  as  it  is  conceived  and  applied  to  all  the 
problems  of  cosmology  in  physics,  chemistry,  astronomy,  biology, 
physiology,  and  psychology.  All  the  "phenomena"  of  matter  are 
treated  as  resultants  of  the  composition  of  atoms  or  elements  without 
regard  to  more  than  the  fact  that  there  are  constituent  or  elementary 
elements  of  some  kind  to  determine  the  organizations  involved.  We 
call  them  "matter"  for  certain  reasons,  whether  good  or  bad  it  is  not 
necessary  to  decide,  though  it  would  not  in  the  least  alter  the  nature 
and  estimate  of  the  "  phenomena  "  if  we  called  the  elements  "  spirits." 
The  one  question  to  answer  is  whether  the  ' '  phenomena  "  observed  are 
modes  or  functions  of  the  complex  wholes  so  formed.  If  they  are  such 
resultants  and  are  not  properties  or  functions  of  the  elements,  their 
existence  and  meaning  or  "end"  are  exhausted  with  that  of  the 
organism  of  which  they  are  the  contingent  effects. 

The  important  fact  to  be  noticed  and  emphasized  after  this  elabo- 
rate illustration  of  the  materialistic  method  is  that  we  decide  by  it,  not 
because  it  is  materialistic,  but  because  of  the  causal  principles  in- 
volved, the  question  of  the  value  and  existence  of  the  "  phenomena" 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  353 

concerned.  This  means  that  the  question  of  value  is  subordinate  to 
that  of  cause,  in  so  far  as  the  problem  of  persistence  is  concerned.  The 
illustration  shows  that  it  matters  not  what  value  we  give  the  light, 
small  or  great,  whether  it  is  the  purpose  or  end  of  all  other  functions 
of  the  organism,  or  itself  subordinate  to  them,  or  even  subordinate  to 
some  end  outside  the  taper,  or  whether  the  light  was  intended  by 
some  outside  intelligent  cause  for  an  end  of  the  other  functions  of  the 
taper,  or  for  an  end  outside  the  candle, — on  any  supposition,  the  light 
regarded  as  a  function  of  chemical  composition  has  no  more  perma- 
nent existence  than  the  taper  or  the  process  of  its  combustion.  We 
may  exalt  the  value  of  light  all  we  please ;  we  may  regard  it  as  the 
convergent  resultant  and  "  end"  of  any  number  of  either  mechanical 
or  spiritual  "forces"  or  agencies,  conscious  or  unconscious  realities, 
nevertheless,  though  all  things  be  "  for  it,  "  yet  the  light  does  not  per- 
sist beyond  the  disappearance  of  the  taper.  Whatever  "  end "  the 
light  has  it  must  be  within  the  existence  of  the  taper  and  not  without 
it  as  light.  The  aetiology  of  the  "phenomenon"  decides  its  tele- 
ology. If  the  taper  be  imperishable  the  light  will  be  a  permanent  real- 
ity or  possibility.  But  depending  upon  the  accidents  of  composition 
and  decomposition,  or  upon  the  external  creation  and  dissolution  of 
the  compound,  whether  this  creation  be  by  an  intelligent  agent  or  not,  its 
nature  and  destiny  are  limited  to  the  origin  and  end  of  that  body.  If 
the  "  phenomenon  "  have  any  value  or  teleological  meaning  in  com- 
parison with  the  other  incidents  really  or  apparently  subordinate  to  it, 
this  must  be  determined  within  the  aetiological  conditions  that  deter- 
mine the  existence  of  the  organism,  and  these  whatever  their  external 
initium  may  be,  accident,  internal  or  external,  "  law  of  nature,"  deus 
ex  machina,  or  other  cause,  are  the  material  components  of  the  organ- 
ism and  their  interaction.  If  the  light  be  supposed  to  have  an  "  end" 
beyond  the  existence  of  the  candle,  this  "  end"  must  either  be  its  own 
continuance,  which  is  not  shown  to  be  a  fact,  or  some  other  reality 
to  which  its  own  existence  is  subordinated.  The  latter  alternative 
subjects  the  value  of  the  "  phenomenon"  to  some  other  fact  than  itself 
and  contradicts  the  supposition  that  the  light  is  the  superordinate 
"  end"  in  the  case,  and  forces  us  to  assign  whatever  teleology  it  may 
have  to  the  limits  of  the  organism  of  which  it  appears  as  a  function. 
This  is  what  materialism  means  and  does.  It  explains  why  and  how 
the  "  phenomenon"  comes  into  existence  and  why  and  how  it  cannot 
be  supposed  to  continue  beyond  the  conditions  which  give  rise  to  it, 
and  it  is  not  necessarily  concerned  with  any  special  view  of  these  con- 
ditions which  may  have  any  name  we  please,  though  as  a  fact  it  has 
23 


354  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

always  specified  them  in  terms  of  "  matter  and  motion."  Its  funda- 
mental point  is  that  the  world,  as  sensibly  known,  is  a  complex  of 
elements  with  properties  that  are  incidents  of  this  complexity  and  not 
of  the  elements,  and  it  can  appeal  to  an  enormous  mass  of  facts  in  its 
support. 

But  to  illustrate  the  spiritualistic  view,  let  us  extend  our  case. 
Suppose  the  light  which  I  have  observed  to  actually  continue  after  the 
candle  has  been  dissolved.  The  situation  in  this  instance  would  be  a 
very  different  one.  The  fact  would  settle  beyond  all  doubt  or  cavil,  if 
the  application  of  causality  has  any  legitimacy  at  all,  that  the  lumi- 
nosity, whether  a  "phenomenon"  or  not,  was  not  a  function  of  the 
body  concerned,  nor  of  its  combustion.  We  should  have  to  seek  some 
cause  or  ground  for  the  fact  outside  the  taper.  It  would  not  matter 
what  that  cause  was  or  whether  we  chose  to  regard  it  as  material  or 
immaterial,  it  would  certainly  not  be  the  resultant  of  the  composition 
•and  decomposition  of  the  candle.  Its  nature  and  destiny  would  be  in- 
dependent of  that  organism,  whatever  they  might  be.  If  we  found  on 
investigation  that  the  light  was  the  function  of  another  complex  and 
decomposable  organism  we  should  expect  it  to  have  a  life  or  persist- 
ence no  longer  than  this  compound.  If  the  complex  organism  be 
indecomposable,  in  spite  of  its  organic  nature,  we  might  expect  the 
"  phenomenon,"  ceteris  paribus,  to  be  equally  perdurable,  potentially 
or  actually.  But  it  is  usually  the  assumption,  whether  valid  or  not  we 
need  not  determine,  that  all  complex  wholes  are  by  nature  dissolvable 
and  actually  decompose  in  time.  Hence  if  the  light  actually  does  sur- 
vive any  process  of  decomposition  the  most  natural  supposition  would 
be  and  is  that  it  is  the  function  of  a  simple  element.  If  this  ground 
or  simple  element  be  indivisible  and  indestructible  we  may  expect  or 
suppose  the  continuance  of  its  "phenomena,"  the  indestructibility  of 
the  "phenomena."  The  settlement  of  this  question,  like  all  others, 
would  be  a  question  of  fact.  We  should  have  to  determine,  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  taper  and  the  discovered  fact  that  the  light  still  con- 
tinues to  exist,  whether  the  cause  or  subject  of  the  "phenomenon" 
was  composite  or  simple,  and  if  composite  whether  it  was  indissolv- 
able  or  not.  If  the  settlement  of  such  a  problem  be  possible  it  would 
be  the  task  of  science  and  philosophy  to  determine  it.  If  it  is  not  pos- 
sible we  should  have  to  let  it  alone.  But  it  may  be  quite  as  possible 
as  the  settlement  of  the  many  problems  of  science  which  we  do  solve, 
and  it  would  only  devolve  upon  us  to  try  as  we  do  in  the  various 
sciences.  We  should  only  have  to  look  for  the  evidence,  if  any  be  dis- 
coverable, that  the  subject  of  the  light  was  either  complex  or  simple, 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  355 

knowing  that  as  a  fact  or  "  phenomenon"  it  actually  survives  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  candle,  according  to  our  imaginary  case.  All  that 
this  survival  establishes  is  the  light's  independence  of  the  taper,  not 
its  dependence  upon  either  a  simple  or  complex  reality.  If  the  evi- 
dence became  accessible  that  the  light  was  a  function  of  a  complex 
whole  other  than  the  taper,  we  should  have  before  us  the  additional 
problem  of  its  perdurability,  unless  we  had  already  decided  the  nature 
of  such  complexes  as  transient  by  nature,  in  which  case  the  destiny  of 
the  light  would  also  be  decided,  as  in  the  assumption  of  its  functional 
relation  to  the  taper  in  the  case  where  we  supposed  it  to  have  disap- 
peared with  its  decomposition.  But  if  evidence  were  forthcoming 
on  investigation  that  the  subject  was  as  simple  as  an  "  atom"  is  sup- 
posed to  be  indestructible,  we  should  have  the  problem  of  its  persist- 
ence explained  in  terms  of  the  assumptions  that  regulated  our  inquiries. 
But  in  any  case  we  should  have  to  look  for  additional  facts  to  decide 
the  matter.  But  it  is  noticeable  that  the  solution  is  independent  of  the 
way  in  which  we  shall  speak  and  think  of  the  elements,  though  not 
independent  of  the  way  in  which  we  shall  speak  and  think  of  the  rela- 
tion between  elements  and  compounds.  If  the  essential  attribute  of 
"  matter"  be  composition  or  complexity,  then  the  elements  would  not 
be  "  matter."  If  the  light  then  persisted  beyond  the  existence  of  the 
candle,  it  would  be  an  "immaterial"  event,  not  a  function  of  "  matter," 
whatever  view  we  might  choose  to  take  of  it  in  other  respects.  But  if  the 
term  "  matter"  be  consistent  with  ideas  of  complexity  and  simplicity, 
divisibility  and  indivisibility,  the  persistence  of  the  light  beyond  the 
organism  represented  by  the  taper  might  still  be  a"  material"  event, 
a  function  of  "  matter,"  though  organism  could  no  longer  be  regarded 
as  necessary  to  its  occurrence,  if  the  subject  of  it  after  the  dissolution 
of  the  taper  be  a  simple  element.  The  whole  problem  is  to  show  first 
that  the  light  does  or  does  not  survive  any  given  set  of  associated 
11  phenomena,"  and  this  will  settle  the  causal  relation  of  it  to  a  given 
reality,  while  its  relation  to  any  others  will  remain  to  be  determined 
equally  by  the  facts  and  not  by  the  consistency  of  our  hypotheses,  just 
as  was  the  case  in  the  first  form  of  our  illustration  where  the  light  was 
supposed  to  be  perishable  with  the  candle. 

This  illustration  is  an  attempt  to  represent  the  method  by  which  the 
spiritualistic  theory  has  approached  and  tried  to  solve  its  problems, 
though  I  have  perhaps  exaggerated  the  amount  of  actual  respect  which 
it  has  had  for  the  necessarily  inductive  nature  of  its  inquiries.  It 
claims,  however,  to  have  reasons  to  believe  that  consciousness  is  not  a 
function  of  the  bodily  organism,  and  on  this  ground  it  consistently 


356  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

asserts  the  possibility  of  its  continuance  beyond  the  dissolution  of  that 
organism.  Whether  it  be  correct  or  not  is  not  now  the  question,  but 
only  the  matter  of  defining  its  problem  and  the  method  of  dealing  with 
it.  But  if  it  have  good  reasons  for  its  belief  that  consciousness  is  a 
function  of  some  other  reality  than  the  brain  or  organism  with  which 
it  is  associated,  it  is  entitled  to  affirm,  not  necessarily  that  it  persists 
through  all  time,  but  that  its  existence  is  not  wholly  conditioned  by 
the  organism  which  dissolves  to  our  knowledge,  and  that  it  has  a 
meaning  for  an  order  which  has  still  to  be  determined  after  the  real  or 
supposed  disappearance  of  the  body,  and  this  affirmation  or  hope  will 
have  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  evidence,  nothing  more.  What 
the  reasons  are  for  supposing  that  consciousness  cannot  be  a  function 
of  the  material  organism  is  indifferent  to  the  definition  of  the  prob- 
lem and  I  am  not  at  present  concerned  with  the  question  of  the  legiti- 
macy or  illegitimacy  of  those  grounds,  but  only  with  the  conceptions 
which  are  necessary  to  make  the  question  a  problem  at  all.  We  must 
at  least  suppose,  with  or  without  grounds  in  fact,  that  consciousness  is 
not  a  function  of  the  body  to  have  even  the  possibility  of  believing  or 
asserting  that  it  continues  independently  of  it,  and  to  assume  a  teleo- 
logical  import  beyond  the  life  of  the  organism.  The  reader  has  only 
to  substitute  the  term  "  consciousness"  for  "  light"  with  appropriate 
alteration  of  other  terms  to  carry  out  the  illustrations  as  the  spiritualist 
would  apply  it  to  the  "  soul "  in  all  its  details. 

I  have  now  indicated  what  the  issue  is  between  materialism  and 
spiritualism  as  metaphysical  theories  and  as  they  have  been  conceived 
in  the  traditional  problems  which  constitute  the  field  of  philosophical 
reflection.  Only  as  men  dared  *€rt~express  their  real  convictions  on 
one  side  or  the  other  of  the  issue  has  discussion  in  clear  terms  taken 
place  upon  it.  Idealism  and  Realism  simply  abandon  it  and  cover  up 
the  problem  by  a  wilderness  of  unintelligible  phrases  in  relation  to  this 
question,  however  intelligible  they  may  or  may  not  be  in  relation  to 
the  problems  within  the  field  of  phenomenal  facts.  But  the  meta- 
physical problem  has  been  between  conceptions  that  are  best  denom- 
inated materialistic  and  spiritualistic,  and  not  "materialistic"  and 
idealistic.  The  question  is  whether  "  matter"  or  "  spirit"  is  the  ulti- 
mate background  of  "  phenomena  "  in  the  cosmological  problem,  and 
whether  human  consciousness,  whatever  field  has  to  be  granted  to 
material  "phenomena,"  survives  the  organism  with  which  it  is  actually 
associated.  That  is  a  problem  which  philosophy  has  to  face  and  not 
to  evade  by  the  specious  use  of  orthodox  language  with  a  heterodox 
content.     It  is  simply  the  question  whether  the  aetiological  conditions 


THEORIES    OF  METAPHYSICS.  357 

of  cosmic  order  require  "  spirit"  to  account  either  for  its  origin  or  for 
the  nature  of  its  "  phenomena,"  and  whether  the  ideological  meaning 
of  consciousness  can  extend  beyond  that  of  the  bodily  organism.  Let 
me  then  summarize  the  results  of  our  reflections  in  defining  the  problem 
involved  in  the  controversy  between  materialism  and  spiritualism. 

Both  theories  have  to  agree  that  the  meaning  and  value  of  "  phe- 
nomena "  are  determined  by  the  serological  conditions  that  affect  their 
origin  or  their  occurrence  and  persistence.  It  matters  not  whether 
those  aetiological  conditions  be  transcendental  or  immanental,  a  personal 
intelligence  creating  the  world  and  sustaining  it  or  an  impersonal  order 
of  cosmic  "forces,"  temporarily  or  eternally  in  motion,  the  continu- 
ance and  discontinuance  of  a  "  phenomenon  "  -is  dependent  upon  the 
continuance  and  discontinuance  of  the  acting  causes,  and  the  value, 
*«  end,"  or  meaning  of  the  facts  is  conditioned  accordingly.  The  only 
question  in  any  case  is,  What  particular  cause  is  operative  in  the  pro- 
duction of  any  given  set  of  "  phenomena,"  or  is  the  "  phenomenon  " 
independent  of  organization?  But  in  all  cases  the  aetiological  deter- 
mines the  teleological  interpretation  of  the  order. 

The  question  of  monism,  dualism,  and  pluralism  has  a  secondary 
place  in  the  solution  of  the  problem.  Whether  the  kind  of  reality  in 
existence  is  of  only  one  kind  or  more  than  one  kind,  whether  it  is  one 
infinite  reality  either  material  or  spiritual,  or  two  kinds  material  and 
spiritual,  or  many  kinds  material  or  spiritual,  is  not  the  primary  prob- 
lem, but  the  nature  and  perdurability  of  the  "  phenomena "  which 
interest  us  as  functional  activities  of  this  reality.  We  should  have 
to  settle  the  ultimate  nature  of  this  reality  in  its  numerical  aspects 
independently  of  the  problem  of  the  nature  and  persistence  of  its 
"  phenomena."  Even  on  the  supposition  that  all  reality  is  an  infinite 
continuum  and  homogeneous  in  kind  there  is  the  fact  that  different 
4 '  phenomenal "  modes  of  its  real  or  supposed  activities  have  relatively 
more  or  less  permanence  in  comparison  with  each  other  and  we  have 
the  problem  of  the  reasons  for  this  difference,  and  it  does  not  matter 
whether  we  speak  and  think  in  terms  of  monadic  and  atomic  realities, 
apparently  independent  of  this  one  absolute  being  or  not,  as  appropriate 
centers  of  reference  for  them.  The  reasons  for  meaning  and  perdur- 
ability are  one  thing  and  the  reasons  for  unity  of  kind  are  another,  and 
possibly  represent  a  problem  whose  solution  cannot  be  attempted  until 
we  know  more  about  the  facts  of  the  cosmos  than  we  now  do.  At  least 
it  is  certain  that  science  went  very  far  in  the  interpretation  of  cosmic 
**  phenomena"  before  it  obtained  any  adequate  evidence  that  would 
even  suggest  a  derivation  of  the  elements,  some  seventy  of  them,  from 


35§  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

a  single  form  of  energy.  But  whether  such  a  conclusion  is  possible 
or  not,  it  is  certainly  not  the  prior  question  in  the  determination  of  the 
meaning  and  persistence  of  all  "  phenomena." 

There  is  a  fact  of  some  importance  in  the  consideration  of  all  theo- 
ries designed  to  interpret  "phenomena"  and  to  render  them  intelli- 
gible. It  is  that  every  theory,  scientific  or  philosophical,  has  two 
aspects,  which  I  shall  call  the  explanatory  and  the  evidential.  To 
be  legitimate  and  acceptable,  that  is,  valid  and  believable,  every  theory 
must  actually  explain  the  "phenomena"  which  it  endeavors  to  make 
intelligible,  and  it  must  have  evidence  that  the  hypothesis  is  a  fact.  If  a 
theory  does  nothing  more  than  explain  an  event  it  shows  nothing  more 
than  the  fact  that  the  "  phenomenon  "  might  have  come  into  existence 
in  this  particular  way,  not  that  it  actually  did  so.  The  explanation  alone 
shows  what  is  possible,  not  what  is  &fact.  To  show  that  it  is  a  fact 
requires  evidence.  Often  enough  the  explanation  and  the  evidence 
are  so  closely  associated  that  the  discovery  of  one  is  accompanied  by 
the  discovery  of  the  other.  But  we  often  enough  find  ourselves  in  the 
situation  where  a  possible  explanation  offers  itself  while  we  are  want- 
ing in  the  evidence  which  would  prove  our  conjecture  or  possibility 
to  be  a  fact.  Hence  we  must  distinguish  between  the  conditions  which 
suggest  the  possible  and  those  which  suggest  the  actual  explanation  of 
"  phenomena."  Antiquity  specially  and  philosophers  generally  have 
paid  less  attention  to  the  evidential  than  to  the  explanatory  functions 
of  theories.  The  growth  of  the  demand  for  evidence  has  been  the 
fruit  of  scepticism  and  the  application  of  scientific  method  which  is 
almost  entirely  the  study  of  evidence  to  prove  hypotheses  which  were 
admitted  only  to  be  possible  at  the  outset,  what  are  called  "working 
hypotheses,"  and  so  requiring  additional  evidence  over  and  above  what 
suggested  them  in  order  to  prove  that  they  were  true  as  well  as  pos- 
sible. But  antiquity  was  satisfied  with  consistency  in  the  extension  of 
hypotheses.  It  started  with  observed  facts,  as  all  thought  must  do, 
and  was  content  if  its  theories  explained  the  "phenomena"  which  it 
wished  to  appear  intelligible,  and  did  little  or  nothing  to  verify  its 
assumptions.  The  evidential  problem  did  not  present  itself  as  nearly 
so  urgent  as  the  explanatory.  The  consequence  was  that  it  too  often 
mistook  possibility  for  fact,  especially  as  the  dogmatic  spirit  prevailed 
over  the  sceptical.  The  slightest  observations  and  analogies  sufficed 
to  start  and  justify  the  widest  and  wildest  speculations  when  the  evi- 
dential question  was  not  respected.  The  rise  of  the  latter  problem 
into  consideration,  as  well  as  the  rise  of  inductive  methods  and  experi- 
mentation which  were  not  applied  by  antiquity,  has  resulted  in  the 


THEORIES   OF  METAPHYSICS.  359 

distinction  between  philosophy  and  science  which  did  not  exist  for  the 
Greeks,  and  hence,  with  the  absence  of  inductive  and  experimental 
methods,  their  reflection  took  only  the  form  of  what  we  should  call 
"philosophy,"  the  speculative  explanation  of  "  phenomena  "  without 
much  regard  to  evidential  considerations  exemplifying  verification. 
But  the  moment  that  scientific  method  came  into  prominence  and  be- 
came the  prevailing  means  of  discovering,  extending  and  verifying 
truth,  "philosophy"  was  left  with  the  heritage  of  speculating  in  pos- 
sibilities, not  in  proving  hypotheses  by  the  investigation  of  facts.  This 
was  the  condition  in  which  Kant  found  and  left  it.  Philosophy  after 
him  could  only  determine  what  was  a  priori  possible  on  such  themes 
as  God,  Freedom  and  Immortality,  problems  which  it  had  started  out 
to  settle  and  now  abandons  as  insoluble  by  philosophic  methods,  while 
science  was  willing  and  glad  to  escape  responsibility  for  either  their 
existence  or  solution.  The  curious  function  of  "practical  reason," 
which  gave  neither  science  nor  philosophy,  to  supply  a  satisfactory 
argument  for  assertions  which  neither  science  nor  philosophy  could 
justify  by  arguments  of  any  kind,  was  a  useful  sop  to  appease  the 
appetite  of  Cerberus  and  allay  the  hungry  instinct  for  persecution. 
If,  therefore,  philosophy  can  not  solve  the  problems  assumed  to  be 
appropriate  to  its  methods  and  inquiries  and  amenable  to  everybody's 
"  practical  reason,"  the  legitimate  power  to  settle  such  questions  with- 
out an  appeal  to  rational  procedure  of  any  kind,  we  must  expect  the 
return  of  dogmatism  again  on  the  ruins  of  rational  thinking  and  the 
natural  abandonment  of  all  philosophy  as  useless.  Only  science  and 
superstition  can  remain  in  its  place,  the  one  for  the  study  of  external 
nature  and  the  other  for  ignorance  in  regard  to  it,  while  the  contempla- 
tively inclined  man  can  only  sit  as  a  beggar  on  the  desert  waste  of  his 
own  theories  and  feed  those  hungry  minds  who  have  no  sense  of 
humor  with  the  husks  of  the  past.  But  human  nature  will  not  regu- 
late its  conduct  by  mere  possibilities,  especially  when  the  pros  and 
cons  are  equally  divided.  It  will  seek  for  evidence  of  what  is  a  fact, 
and  unless  the  "  possibilities"  of  philosophy  can  give  some  credentials 
for  probable  or  certain  reality,  they  can  not  be  respected,  and  if  they 
do  not,  they  are  naturally  treated  as  so  much  fiction.  Consequently 
science  takes  the  place  of  philosophic  reflection,  and  Hecuba,  forlorn 
and  desolate  on  a  lonely  island,  still  mourns  the  loss  of  her  children. 

Ancient  thought  could  speculate,  but  did  less  with  the  evidential 
problem  than  its  theories  required.  Modern  thought  respects  eviden- 
tial considerations  where  it  is  scientific  and  not  philosophic,  and  eschews 
metaphysical   poetizing.     In  this   it  proceeds   upon   safe  ground  and 


360  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

insists  that  all  assertions  shall  substantiate  their  probabilities  by  facts 
or  conformity  to  facts.  This  will  make  it  necessary  to  examine  meta- 
physical theories  by  this  criterion,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  determining 
their  strength,  if  not  their  legitimacy.  I  mean,  therefore,  to  investi- 
gate the  controversy  between  materialism  and  spiritualism  in  the  light 
of  these  two  tests,  not  to  determine  their  truth,  but  their  strength  as 
theories  of  existence.  They  do  not  have  any  interest  for  their  mere 
possibility  to  the  modern  mind,  but  for  their  measure  of  conformity  to 
the  facts.  Hence  I  shall  examine  them  in  the  light  of  both  their  ex- 
planatory and  evidential  claims  without  pretending  to  dogmatize  upon 
one  side  or  the  other,  as  I  am  more  interested  in  having  their  problems 
frankly  recognized  than  to  presume  to  solve  them. 


CHAPTER  X. 

MATERIALISM. 

I  have  defined  materialism  in  terms  of  its  relation  to  spiritualism, 
and  so  indicated  that  it  undertakes  to  explain  all  "  phenomena"  as  re- 
sultants of  composition.  The  elements  which  enter  into  this  compo- 
sition it  calls  "matter,"  as  well  as  the  compounds.  The  questions 
raised  by  the  fact  or  assumption  of  change  from  the  elementary  to  the 
composite  condition  do  not  yet  come  into  court,  but  only  the  fact  that 
its  conception  of  all  things  involved  this  transition  and  the  rise  of 
' '  phenomenal "  facts  as  the  resultant  of  it.  But  materialism  has 
taken  two  general  forms.  The  first  I  have  called  pan-materialism, 
and  the  second  psychological  materialism.  Psychological  materialism 
is  convertible  with  the  statement  that  consciousness  is  a  function  of  the 
brain  or  animal  organism.  This  definition  and  type  of  the  general 
theory  means  to  explain  the  origin  and  ground  of  mental  "  phenom- 
ena "  without  assuming  that  the  general  cosmic  problem  requires  to 
have  been  solved  in  order  to  determine  the  relation  and  meaning  of 
consciousness.  Its  truth  is  supposed  to  be  compatible  with  the  belief 
that  there  may  be  other  forms  of  reality  in  the  world  besides  matter. 
In  other  words,  psychological  materialism  is  conceived  as  compatible 
with  the  denial  of  pan-materialism.  It  approaches  the  problem  from 
the  narrower  field  of  human  facts  than  that  of  cosmic  facts  on  a  larger 
scale.  Pan-materialism  may  have  two  forms,  the  monistic  and  the 
pluralistic.  The  monistic  type  is  best  represented  historically  by  the 
systems  of  Spinoza  and  the  Eleatics,  though  there  are  aspects  and 
conceptions  in  these  systems  which  might  suggest  an  injustice  in  the 
exemplification.  The  pluralistic  type  is  best  represented  in  the  sys- 
tems of  Democritus,  Epicurus  and  Lucretius,  though  there  may  be 
reasons  for  disputing  the  purity  of  the  materialistic  conceptions  of 
some  of  them.  But,  granting  the  concessions  in  each  case,  they  are 
the  best  concrete  examples  of  the  different  modes  of  thought  that  can 
be  selected.  The  monistic  type  of  the  pan-materialistic  theory  assumes 
one  homogeneous  substance  throughout  all  space  which  simply  "  phe- 
nomenalizes  "  in  the  production  of  the  facts  as  we  observe  them,  and 
no  other  form  of  "substance"  exists.  The  pluralistic  type  of  this 
theory  assumes  an  indefinite  number  of  substances  which  it  calls  atoms 
361 


362  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  accounts  for  all  "  phenomena  "  which  are  represented  in  two  types 
of  transient  facts,  "  substances"  that  are  compounds  of  these  primary- 
atoms  or  elements,  and  their  modal  activities  or  properties.  But  there 
are  several  reasons  for  not  discussing  each  type  by  itself.  In  the  first 
place,  the  values  of  facts  depend,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  their  aetiology 
and  their  degree  of  permanence.  In  the  second  place,  all  theories, 
whether  monistic  or  pluralistic,  have  to  take  account  of  relative  differ- 
ences of  permanence  in  "  phenomena"  without  regard  to  question  of 
ultimate  causes,  monistic  or  pluralistic.  In  the  third  place,  both 
monistic  and  pluralistic  theories  have  taken  the  same  position  with 
regard  to  the  meaning  and  persistence  of  consciousness,  the  pantheistic 
view  denying  personal  immortality  quite  as  emphatically  as  atomic 
materialism.  We  should  only  have  to  change  our  mode  of  expression 
slightly  in  discussing  the  monistic  theories  instead  of  the  pluralistic. 
Consequently,  since  the  atomic  doctrine  of  modern  science  perpetuates 
the  historical  conception  of  materialism  we  may  best  discuss  the  nature 
and  strength  of  the  materialistic  theory  in  terms  that  will  be  more  easily 
intelligible  to  the  scientific  man.  The  statement  can  be  modified  later 
for  the  monistic  type. 

Materialism  developed  into  fairly  definite  form  in  the  doctrines  of 
Democritus  and  Epicurus.  There  were  tendencies  toward  it  from  the 
time  of  Thales  in  the  material  causes  to  which  philosophers  appealed 
for  the  explanation  of  the  cosmic  arrangement  about  them.  But 
materialism  did  not  get  clear  expression  and  detailed  treatment  until 
Epicurus  and  Lucretius.  What  distinguishes  their  doctrine  is  the 
explicit  affirmation  of  the  eternity  of  matter  and  motion  and  the  atomic 
nature  of  matter  as  a  substance  in  its  elementary  form.  These  may  be 
said  to  be  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  materialism  in  all  its  later 
history.  There  was  one  more  that  was  fundamental  to  the  Greek  form 
of  the  doctrine.  This  was  that  which  regarded  the  direction  of  this 
assumed  motion.  Both  Democritus  and  Epicurus  held  that  this  motion 
was  downward.  Democritus,  however,  held  that  there  was  a  differ- 
ence of  velocity  due  to  differences  of  weight,  and  hence  the  atoms  could 
meet  to  form  aggregates  and  compound  wholes.  His  system  required 
no  additional  "force"  to  accomplish  union  of  the  atoms.  But  Epi- 
curus held  that  the  downward  motion  of  all  atoms  was  the  same  in 
velocity,  and  introduced  the  free  and  spontaneous  power  of  the  atoms 
to  swerve  aside  and  come  into  contact  with  other  falling  atoms  to 
produce  the  necessary  union  and  composition  which  constituted  the 
nature  of  the  sensible  cosmos.  In  the  course  of  time,  owing  to  the 
contradiction  in  the  system  which  this  assumption  of  Epicurus  involved, 


MATERIALISM.  363 

this  free  action  of  the  atoms  was  dropped  out,  as  also  the  downward 
motion  of  the  elements,  owing  to  the  doctrine  of  gravitation,  leaving 
as  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  the  theory  the  permanence  of  mat- 
ter and  motionrwith-swhich   to  start   in    the   explanation  of    cosmic 

"  phenomena."         (JJD         f^Y—^) 

I  shall  not  at  present  con^rfi~myse4r  with  the  question  of  the 
legitimacy  of  this  assumption,  but  with  its  naturalness  to  the  Greek 
mind  and  its  explanatory  power.  Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  the 
Greek  admitted  the  eternity  of  something,  though  he  did  not  always 
explicitly  assume  or  assert  the  eternity  of  motion.  But  he  saw  about 
him  the  fact  of  change,  the  fact  which  had  produced  the  philosophy  of 
Heraclitus,  and  the  fact  of  union  or  composition  of  "  substances"  to 
produce  the  sensible  realities  about  him,  a  fact  which  gave  rise  to  all 
the  systems  of  cosmology.  All  agreed  as  to  the  permanence  of  '*  sub- 
stance," whether  they  took  the  monistic  or  pluralistic  conception  of  it, 
but  differed  in  regard  to  the  manner  in  which  cosmic  arrangements 
were  effected.  Empedocles  introduced  "  love  "  and  "  hate,"  or  attrac- 
tion and  repulsion;  An^xagoras,  "reason";  Aristotle,  the  "prime 
mover"  or  God,  a  deus  ex  machina,  as  causes  of  motion  and  change. 
But  the  materialists  assume  the  equal  eternity  of  motion  or  change 
with  that  of  "  substance  "  or  matter.  But  how  could  Democritus  and 
Epicurus  make  this  assumption?  The  answer  is  that  the  Greek  mind 
had  no  conception  of  the  attraction  of  gravitation  and  hence  it  ex- 
plained the  motion  of  falling  bodies  by  their  weight,  just  as  the  untu- 
tored man  does  to-day,  thus  explicitly  or  implicitly  assuming  an  in- 
ternal "force"  instead  of  the  apparently  external  "  force"  of  gravita- 
tion to  initiate  movement.  If  bodies  fall  because  of  their  weight  and 
there  is  an  infinite  space  in  which  to  exist  and  fall,  they  must  be  eter- 
nally in  motion  downward.  Whether  true  or  false,  we  thus  see  that 
the  assumption  was  a  natural  one  for  the  Greek  mind  to  make  and 
was  in  entire  keeping  and  consistency  with  the  ideas  of  the  time.  The 
same  assumption  also  led  to  the  Epicurean  doctrine  of  the  spon- 
taneous swerving  of  the  atoms.  We  see  that  the  supposition  that 
bodies  moved  themselves  by  their  weight  involved  the  idea  of  self-mo- 
tion or  internal  action.  It  was  only  another  application  of  this  idea  to 
have  the  atoms  move  themselves  laterally.  The  conception  was  famil- 
iar enough  in  the  Greek  notion  of  various  moving  objects,  such  as  the 
running  streams,  which  came  under  the  general  idea  of  motion  by 
weight.  All  motion  was  in  fact  conceived  as  self-motion  where  the 
cause  of  it  from  without  was  not  observed.  Hence  the  idea  that  all 
nature  was  animated  by  life.     "Living  water  "  came  from  the  self- 


364  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

motion  of  the  water  in  the  rivers  and  rills.  Hence  it  was  quite  natu- 
ral for  the  materialist  to  assume  the  possibility  of  self-motion  in  the 
atoms,  not  only  downward  but  also  laterally.  But,  natural  as  this  con- 
ception was  to  the  Greek  mind,  the  doctrines  of  inertia  and  gravitation 
eliminated  it  along  with  the  causal  influence  of  weight  from  the  as- 
sumptions of  the  materialistic  theory  and  left  only  the  permanence  of 
matter  and  motion  as  the  basal  ideas  of  the  doctrine. 

Now  there  was  another  set  of  ideas  associated  with  the  theory  which 
it  is  important  to  remark.  The  doctrine  assumed  both  an  identity  and 
a  difference  between  the  facts  to  be  explained  and  the  facts  with  which 
the  explanation  was  effected.  The  facts  to  be  explained  were  the  cos- 
mos as  sensibly  "  known,"  and  the  facts  with  which  the  explanation 
was  effected  were  the  atoms  or  elements  out  of  which  the  sensible  cos- 
mos was  formed.  We  may  call  the  two  "  worlds  "  the  sensible  and 
the  supersensible  facts.  I  call  the  atoms  a  supersensible  reality  because, 
however  they  were  described,  they  were  not  perceptible  to  sense  ex- 
perience. They  were  described  by  qualities  which  could  not  be  actually 
perceived,  but  which  were  the  same  in  kind  conceptually  as  some  of 
those  that  were  actually  perceived,  namely,  hardness,  shape,  size, 
weight,  etc.  Both  the  sensible  and  supersensible  realities  were  called 
"  matter."  The  natural  reason  for  this  was,  of  course,  the  Greek  pre- 
disposition to  monistic  thought  even  when  its  philosophy  was  pluralistic, 
and  also  its  naive  view  of  perception  which  neither  realized  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  subjective  and  the  objective  governing  all  modern 
thought,  except  perhaps  in  the  Sophists,  whose  point  of  view  was  soon 
abandoned,  nor  assumed  any  antithesis  between  sensory  and  intellectual 
*'  knowledge  "  with  the  tendency  to  the  method  of  abstraction  from  the 
sensory  in  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  things  not  actually 
sensible.  Sense  and  intellect  with  them  usually  gave  the  same  kind 
of  "  knowledge,"  at  least  in  its  essential  characteristics,  and  hence  with 
a  predisposition  to  monism  as  against  dualism  it  was  only  natural  to 
the  Greek  to  apply  the  same  term  to  the  complex  and  elementary  form 
of  "  substance"  in  spite  of  the  sensible  form  of  the  one  and  the  super- 
sensible form  of  the  other.  The  modern  theory  of  gravity  and  the  in- 
destructibility of  matter  as  scientifically  proved  by  means  of  gravity 
gives^scientific  justification  to  the  assumption  of  the  identity  between 
the  two  conditions  of  this  reality,  a  justification  which  the  Greek  could 
not  make  so  clear,  though  he  was  probably  influenced  by  it  in  his 
estimation  of  the  material  causes  that  entered  into  the  formation  of 
ordinary  compounds.  Modern  experiment,  however,  has  been  able  to 
isolate  the  invisible  and  supersensible  condition  of  matter,  and  from  the 


MATERIALISM.  365 


effect  which  gravity  indirectly  produces  in  the  sensible  world  (experi- 
ment of  weighing  gases  after  combustion)  we  infer  the  identity  of  the 
supersensible  condition  with  the  sensible  in  respect  to  its  fundamental 
nature.  The  Greek,  however,  could  not  quite  so  effectively  support 
his  assumption,  and  hence  had  fewer  facts  and  means  at  his  command 
to  dispute  any  attempt  to  question  the  right  to  call  his  elementary  units 
or  atoms"  matter."  But  he  made  the  assumption,  whether  with  or 
without  good  reasons  which  we  are  not  now  investigating,  and  our  prob- 
lem is  to  see  its  effect  upon  the  conceptions  which  governed  the  expla- 
nation of  "  phenomena." 

We  can  understand  the  real  or  supposed  explanatory  power  of  the 
materialistic  theory  in  antiquity  only  by  observing  the  relation  be- 
tween its  assumptions  and  others  associated  with  the  same  stage  of 
reflection.  The  modern  scientist  will  remark  much  that  is  exceed- 
ingly naive  in  the  materialism  of  Epicurus  and  Lucretius  and  rec- 
ognize certain  fundamental  weaknesses,  but  he  will  also  acknowl- 
edge the  lineage  of  his  own  speculative  view  of  the  world.  The 
atomic  doctrine  and  the  theory  of  evolution  are  but  extensions  and 
improvements  of  the  materialism  of  the  Greeks,  which  began  in  naive 
attempts  to  explain  the  cosmos.  Greek  speculations  were  so  satu- 
rated with  the  assumption  that  the  cosmos  was  a  collective  whole  or- 
ganized out  of  elements  that  it  was  quite  ready  for  the  atomic  theory 
when  it  was  proposed,  and  they  had  been  forced  by  various  influences 
to  abandon  the  older  anthropomorphic  conceptions  of  the  world's 
evolution  or  creation  and  began  in  the  recognition  of  the  ' '  four  ele- 
ments "  to  admit  the  plurality  of  the  substances  which  composed  the 
world.  All  substance  appeared  to  the  Greeks  to  be  permanent  in  its 
non-apparent  nature  at  least,  and  Heraclitus  in  his  conception  of  per- 
petual flux  in  the  cosmos  prepared  the  way  to  place  the  eternity  of  motion 
alongside  that  of  substance,  and  there  were  minds,  like  that  of  Plato 
even,  who  were  quite  ready  to  accept  this  eternity  of  motion  or  change, 
provided  we  could  also  accept  the  existence  and  permanence  of  the 
substratum  of  which  motion  was  a  mode  of  action.  This  was  the 
last  most  important  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  idea  oifate  out  of 
mythology  into  the  "  law  of  nature,  "  a  conception  which  represented 
a  fixed  order  not  admitting  of  any  alternative  courses  in  its  tendencies 
and  effects,  and  which  was  extended  so  much  further  by  making  mo- 
tion, or  the  process  of  forming  collective  wholes  in  nature,  as  fixed 
as  the  materials  used  in  the  process,  and  whose  changes,  collocations, 
and  combinations  had  presumably  been  regulated  by  some  intelligence 
according     to    Anaxagoras,    Plato,    Aristotle  and    even     the    Stoics. 


366  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

These  could  well'  concede  the  unchangeability  of  the  materials  of  the 
cosmos  if  you  would  grant  them  the  causal  initiation  of  motion  and 
change  in  the  collocation  of  the  elements.  But  the  materialistic 
theory  made  motion,  and  apparently  on  good  grounds,  equally  fixed 
as  the  materials  involved  in  cosmic  evolution,  and  as  a  consequence 
there  appeared  no  reason  or  occasion  for  the  intervention  of  super- 
natural forces  in  the  regulation  of  things.  Hence  the  gods  that  were  al- 
lowed by  grace  to  exist  were  placed  in  the  intermundia  and  made  to  serve 
a  function  like  that  of  Kant's  "Ding  an  Sich."  They  could  be  known 
but  they  did  nothing.  They  might  watch  events,  but  they  could  not 
make  them.  Now  once  having  gotten  the  eternity  of  motion  admitted 
there  was  a  clear  field  for  at  least  a  plausibly  mechanical  explanation 
of  the  cosmos.  Certain  subsidiary  assumptions  had  to  be  made  in  ad- 
dition to  the  two  fundamental  facts  and  these  subsidiary  hypotheses 
were  drawn  from  "empirical"  observation,  and  the  persistence  of 
matter  and  motion  through  all  conditions  was  not  a  direct  object  of 
experience,  though  assumed  to  be  implied  by  it.  The  permanence  of 
motion  was  supposed  to  be  a  consequence  of  the  fact  of  weight  in  the 
elements  which  existed  in  empty  space.  As  these  were  made  to  fall 
by  their  weight  the  problem  to  be  solved  by  subsidiary  hypotheses 
was  that  of  collocation.  Weight  being  the  cause  of  motion  in  empty 
space,  differences  of  weight  would  naturally  give  rise  to  differences  of 
velocity  in  the  falling  atoms  and  thus  contact  and  aggregation  might 
follow.  This  was  the  view  of  Democritus,  as  we  have  seen.  Also 
we  have  seen  that  Epicurus,  in  view  of  the  equal  velocity  of  all  atoms 
downward,  had  to  provide  for  free  lateral  movement  in  order  to 
effect  a  union.  But  neither  philosophy  looked  beyond  the  fact  of 
mechanical  aggregation  and  did  not  provide  for  any  persistence  even 
temporally  of  the  collocation  which  they  wished  to  show  was  possible 
in  accordance  with  "  natural  laws."  The  doctrine  of  chemical  affin- 
ity in  modern  times  compensated  for  this  imperfection.  Neither  did 
the  older  materialist  tell  us  why  the  evolution  should  proceed  from 
chaos  to  order,  from  separated  to  collocated  conditions.  He  was  con- 
tent to  explain,  if  only  plausibly  in  terms  of  actual  facts,  the  existing 
cosmic  order,  without  raising  questions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  pre- 
vious condition,  though  it  is  clear  that  he  assumed  it  to  be  a  chaos,  just 
as  all  philosophers  of  that  time  did,  whether  the  assumption  were 
warranted  or  not.  It  was  easy  to  conceive  that  collocation  could  take 
place  after  the  manner  supposed,  if  no  questions  were  asked  about 
the  reasons  for  the  particular  order  observed,  and  if  the  problem  of 
internal  and  chemical  action  were  disregarded.     The  Greek  mind  was 


MATERIALISM.  367 

satisfied  with  mechanical  collocation  for  explanation  and  it  remained 
only  to  explain  why  a  particular  order  was  the  result  of  the  process. 
This  was  boldly  said  to  be  a  mere  matter  of  chance,  a  conception  that 
was  supposed  to  exclude  purpose  but  to  admit  necessary  causality. 
The  theory  thus  stood  for  the  exclusion  of  intelligence  from  the  proc- 
ess of  cosmic  evolution  and  for  its  explanation  by  mechanical  forces 
alone.  Now  mechanical  action  meant,  not  necessarily  the  initiation 
of  motion  from  without,  as  it  does  with  modern  application  of  ma- 
chinery, but  uniform  action  according  to  a  fixed  "  law"  or  set  of  con- 
ditions which  were  purposeless  and  which  admitted  no  freedom,  vari- 
ation, or  alternatives  in  the  production  of  cosmic  order.  Finding 
matter  and  motion  fixed  in  their  nature  and  amount,  according  to  the 
maxim  ex  nihilo  nihil  jit,  and  the  modes  of  collocation  and  union  de- 
pendent upon  actions  that  no  one  presumed  to  regard  as  intelligently 
directed,  the  doctrine  of  mechanical  creation  or  evolution  only  com- 
bined them  in  a  way  to  suggest  either  the  superfluousness  of  the 
supernatural,  or  the  necessity  of  transferring  its  functions  to  condi- 
tions antecedent  to  those  which  were  supposed  to  be  existing  facts  and 
the  recognizable  cause  of  the  "  phenomenal "  world.  But  as  these 
antecedent  conditions  were  the  eternity  of  matter  and  motion,  and  the 
sufficiency  of  certain  "forces,"  eventually  assumed  to  be  internal,  to 
account  for  changes  of  direction  and  collocation,  no  supernatural 
antecedent  was  necessary,  even  if  supposable  as  a  possible  explana- 
tion. Hence  the  original  assumptions  excluded  the  usefulness  and 
necessity  of  intelligence  from  the  cause  of  "  phenomena,"  whatever 
relation  to  the  order  intelligence  might  be  supposed  to  have  when 
granted  to  exist.  The  materialist  tacitly  assumed  that  purposeful 
action  must  either  be  coincident  with  all  motion  whatsoever  or  be 
evidenced  in  the  initiation  of  some  change  or  modified  direction  of 
existing  movements  toward  an  end  or  result  not  naturally  indicated  in 
the  existing  order,  but  as  the  serological  and  teleological  order  in  the 
first  instance  coincided  there  was  no  evidence  of  the  teleological,  and 
as  there  was  no  external  initiation  of  motion  in  the  system  there  could, 
on  the  second  alternative,  be  neither  teleological  action  nor  the  evi- 
dence of  it.  Consequently  the  materialist  was  satisfied  with  the  aeti- 
ological  explanation  in  mechanical  terms,  that  is,  in  showing  how  a 
fact  came  into  existence,  and  could  not  recognize  any  purpose  involv- 
ing the  supposition  of  an  initial  cause  other  than  existing  motion  and 
the  "natural"  properties  of  the  elements.  The  crucial  weakness  of 
the  theory  was  its  exclusive  application  to  the  problem  and  explana- 
tion of  collocation  and  not  the  dissolution  of  organic  compounds,  and 


36S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  admission  of  "  chance"  to  slur  over  the  appearance  of  teleological 
order  which  the  assumption  of  "  chance,"  whatever  it  meant,  ac- 
tually presupposed. 

The  materialistic  theory  has  less  difficulties  for  the  modern  philoso- 
pher than  for  the  ancient  because  we  have  assumed  or  proved  the  exist- 
ence of  "forces"  which  are  supposed  to  explain  what  the  ancient 
materialists  either  ignored  or  did  not  know.  We  shall  come  to  these 
when  the  modern  view  is  more  specifically  described  and  defined.  But 
it  was  an  attempt  to  correct  the  older  view  which  had  various  weak- 
ness. Among  these,  the  first  to  be  noted  has  just  been  mentioned, 
namely,  the  tendency  only  to  explain  the  status  quo  of  things,  the 
present  condition,  and  not  the  future  order  which  was  a  result  of  a 
dissolution  of  the  present.  It  had  a  means  to  explain  how  the  present 
collocations  of  matter  were  effected,  but  it  ignored  the  explanation  of 
change  back  into  the  elementary  state  again,  though  this  was  quite  as 
much  an  observed  fact  as  any  combination  of  elements.  Plow  the  atoms 
could  be  separated  after  they  once  got  together  was  not  indicated.  It 
sufficed,  the  materialist  of  that  time  thought,  if  he  could  explain  how 
elements  got  together  without  extraneous  and  intelligent  agency.  But, 
though  it  was  just  as  incumbent  to  explain  the  fact  of  dissolution  rather 
than  dogmatically  state  that  it  was  a  universal  fact,  he  had  no  "  forces  " 
in  sight  to  make  it  intelligible. 

But  a  most  important  weakness  of  a  positive  kind  in  the  ancient 
materialism  was  its  theory  of  the  soul,  not  because  it  was  false,  but 
because  it  was  neither  consistent  with  the  mechanical  theory  nor  neces- 
sary to  the  conclusion  which  was  drawn  in  regard  to  its  destiny.  This 
weakness  was  not  remarked,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  ancient  philosophers. 
The  Epicurean  theory  of  the  soul  was,  not  that  it  was  a  bodily  function 
as  it  should  have  been  regarded,  but  that  it  was  a  finely  organized  form 
of  matter.  To  have  made  the  mechanical  theory  complete  it  should 
have  explained  all  mental  activities  and  phenomena  as  functions  of  the 
collocations  of  matter  represented  by  the  bodily  organism.  But  it  con- 
ceived the  soul  as  a  material  organism  other  than  the  body  and  hence 
mental  activities  as  functions  of  another  subject  than  the  body  proper. 
What  the  reasons  were  for  admitting  this  view  of  the  case  is  not  a 
matter  of  importance,  but  only  the  fact  that  the  admission  was  an 
inconsistency  in  the  theory.  No  doubt  the  harmony  of  the  supposi- 
tion as  a  fact  with  preexisting  and  existing  beliefs  availed  to  conceal 
the  superfluousness  and  contradictory  nature  of  the  admission,  as  it 
was  in  entire  agreement  with  previous  philosophic  conceptions  of  the 
"soul,"  human  or  "  divine,"  as  a  refined  form  of  material  reality,  but 


MATERIALISM.  369 

this  acceptability  did  not  make  it  any  more  compatible  with  mechanical 
theories  intended  to  subordinate  all  intelligence  to  organisms  with 
which  it  was  associated  and  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  teleological 
action  from  the  cosmos. 

No  less  striking  in  the  system  was  the  Epicurean  denial  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  after  refusing  to  treat  it  as  a  function  or  "  phe- 
nomenal "  activity  of  the  bodily  organism.  It  was  quite  consistent 
with  the  prevailing  belief,  that  all  collocations  of  matter  were  transient 
and  perishable,  to  deny  immortality,  but  it  was  not  necessary  to  go  out 
of  the  way  of  the  theory  to  assert  the  fact.  If  the  soul  was  a  refined 
form  of  organized  matter  existing  beside  and  in  the  body,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  dissolution  of  this  body  to  necessitate  the  disappearance 
or  disappearance  of  the  soul  from  existence.  If  it  had  been  treated  as 
a  "  phenomenal "  resultant  of  composition  or  bodily  collocations  of 
matter,  its  consequent  disappearance  at  death  would  be  a  matter  of 
course.  But  conceived  as  a  form  of  matter,  a  substantive  collocation 
of  fine  material  elements,  there  is  no  inherent  reason  in  this  fact  why  it 
should  be  dissolved  with  it,  even  if  it  be  intrinsically  perishable  as  an 
organism ;  especially  as  Epicurean  materialism  was  not  advanced  to 
explain  dissolution,  but  the  composition  of  matter.  It  was  the  belief 
in  the  transitory  nature  of  all  complex  organisms  that  prompted  the 
denial  of  persistence  after  death,  but  there  was  nothing  in  the  concep- 
tion of  the  soul's  relation  to  the  organism,  as  it  was  understood  by 
ancient  materialism,  to  necessitate  its  annihilation  at  the  decomposition 
of  the  body,  whatever  might  happen  to  it  later  owing  to  other  assump- 
tions. Hence  Epicurus  and  Lucretius  simply  went  out  of  their  way  to 
deny  a  doctrine  which  it  was  irrelevant  to  deny  in  a  theory  explaining 
the  origin  of  things,  unless  mental  functions  were  assumed  to  be  an 
incident  only  in  the  composition  explained.  Modern  thought  would 
not  suppose  that  death  necessarily  ended  consciousness  if  it  conceived 
it  as  the  function  of  another  than  the  bodily  organism.  It  would  have 
to  suppose  a  second  death  or  a  coincidental  death  with  the  bodily 
organism  on  other  grounds  than  that  of  bodily  death  to  accomplish 
that  end.  So  evident  is  this  that  the  materialistic  theory  of  the  ancients 
would  probably  not  have  created  any  opposition  but  for  this  irrelevant 
denial  of  a  religious  belief.  It  was  all  the  more  unnecessary  to  make 
the  denial  because  the  materialist  admitted  the  existence  of  the  gods  as 
a  concession  to  religion,  though  he  gave  them  no  duties  or  privileges 
in  the  government  of  the  cosmos,  and  he  might  have  been  as  prudent 
or  concessive  in  maintaining  silence  on  the  destiny  of  .the  soul,  when 
its  disappearance  was  not  necessarily  involved  in  the  process  dissolving 

24 


37°  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  body.  He  should  have  specified  the  cause  for  the  simultaneous 
dissolution  of  the  two  realities,  the  "  physical"  body  and  the  "  soul." 
The  point  of  possible  attack  on  the  theory  I  shall  notice  again  when  I 
come  to  consider  the  development  of.  spiritualism.  But  the  assumption 
that  all  organisms  were  transient  was  so  prevalent,  so  axiomatic  as  it 
were,  that  the  philosophic  defect  of  the  theory  was  concealed  and  only 
its  attitude  against  the  religious  position  recognized.  Its  causal  weak- 
ness remained  undetected.  Hence  l|hat  consistency  it  obtained  with 
the  assumption  of  the  transient  nature  of  all  composite  organisms  it 
lost  in  its  neglect  of  the  principle  o|  causality  which  was  the  more 
fundamental  of  its  postulates  and  whiah  required  that  the  coincidence 
of  the  soul's  disappearance  with  the  bo^y  should  be  explained  and  not 
merely  asserted. 

Another  important  weakness  in  the  mechanical  theory  was  the 
assumption  of  free  agency  in  the  atomsko  swerve  laterally  from  their 
vertical  motion  in  order  to  effect  union  \*ath  each  other.  The  supposi- 
tion was  compatible  enough  with  the  idea  of  internal  forces,  but  it  was 
more  gratuitous  than  that  of  weight  to^  explain  downward  motion, 
because  no  sensible  facts  could  be  produced  to  make  the  hypothesis 
plausible.  It  was  a  pure  fabrication  to  explain  the  fact  of  collocation 
which  was  impossible  on  the  other  assumptions  of  his  doctrine.  Nor 
could  any  excuse  be  sought,  as  Epicurus  did  seek  it,  in  the  necessity 
of  defending  the  freedom  of  the  human  will,  as  his  doctrine  required 
him  to  explain  away  that  freedom,  not  assume  or  defend  it.  If  he  was 
to  accept  the  truth  of  free  will,  that  is,  the  judgment  of  the  mind  as  to 
that  truth,  it  might  be  just  as  easy  to  accept  its  opinions  on  other  funda- 
mental conceptions  opposed  to  his  own.  It  is  probable,  however,  that 
Epicurus  and  the  materialists  of  the  time  conceived  "  freedom  "  of  will 
after  the  manner  of  many  persons  of  that  age,  namely,  as  implying 
caprice  or  the  capacity  to  act  lawlessly  and  in  irregular  unpredictable 
ways.  This  was  consistent  with  the  "chance"  which  he  admitted 
into  the  interpretation  of  phenomena,  but  it  was  incompatible  with  the 
exclusion  of  purpose,  which  it  was  the  object  of  "  chance"  to  exclude. 
Free  will  involves  purpose,  no  matter  how  capricious  its  action  may 
be,  so  that  the  materialists  of  the  older  type  would  either  have  to  sur- 
render the  free  agency  of  the  atoms  or  so  change  their  idea  of  ' '  chance  " 
as  to  make  it  as  consistent  with  teleology  as  they  supposed  it  was  with 
causality  or  aetiology. 

There  were  several  elements  of  strength  in  the  theory.  The  first 
of  these  lay  in  the  appeal  to  known  facts.  The  "  empirical  "  tendency 
of  Aristotle  to  study  the  facts  of  nature  in  a  way  quite  different  from 


MA  TERIALISM.  3  7 1 

Plato  resulted  in  the  attempt  to  find  causes  and  explanations  in  actual 
"  experience  "  as  well  as  the  phenomena  to  be  explained,  a  procedure 
which  was  not  completely  effected  by  Aristotle,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
his  "prime  mover"  or  God  was  placed  outside  the  system.  But  he 
set  the  example  of  accepting  sense  perception  as  a  more  reliable  source 
of  knowledge  than  Plato,  and  it  was  only  following  his  method  to  look 
for  causal  principles  in  "  experience."  Now  the  materialists  re- 
mained in  the  system,  and  in  it  as  sensibly  observed,  for  their  causes, 
and  could  all  the  more  consistently  do  this,  because  Greek  thought 
generally  had  this  conception  of  causal  action  in  spite  of  the  appearance 
to  the  contrary.  Even  when  it  accepted  panpsychism,  creative  intelli- 
gence, reason  or  first  causes,  these  agencies  were  not  only  conceived  as 
immanent,  but  were  also  conceived  as  differing  only  in  degree  of  fine- 
ness from  ordinary  reality,  not  absolutely  different  in  kind,  nor  trans- 
cendent in  existence.  Aristotle  had  thus  departed  from  the  prevalent 
conception  of  causality  in  Greek  speculation  when  he  conceived  his 
"  prime  mover"  as  outside  the  system  only  to  start  it  and  then  ever 
afterward  to  merely  watch  it  in  contemplative  idleness,  though  he  was 
consistent  enough  with  the  doctrine  of  inertia  and  the  assumption  that 
change  must  have  a  beginning  and  external  cause.  But  the  material- 
ists had  not  acted  on  any  clear  assumption  of  inertia  and  hence  returned 
to' discover  their  causes  in  the  system  of  facts  and  realities  whose  col- 
locations and  changes  were  to  be  explained,  thus  remaining  by  the 
most  natural  traditions  of  Greek  philosophic  reflection. 

I  have  not  explained  why  the  fundamental  assumption  that  "  matter  " 
was  eternal  or  indestructible  was  a  feature  of  strength  to  the  theory  and 
why  it  was  so  readily  acceptable  to  Greek  thought.  The  nai've  con- 
ception of  "  matter"  previous  to  the  period  of  philosophic  reflection 
was  that  of  the  sensible  world.  To  this  point  of  view  "  matter"  was 
"  phenomenal "  or  transient,  perhaps  without  reference  to  its  explana- 
tion in  terms  of  composition  but  simply  as  a  fact.  But  however  this 
may  have  been,  it  was  soon  abandoned  for  the  idea  of  agencies  or  sub- 
stances that  were  not  "phenomenal"  at  all,  but  eternal.  This  was 
brought  about  by  the  further  observation  that  this  "  phenomenal  " 
matter,  transient  reality,  was  also  composite  and  that  its  transiency  was 
in  some  way  connected  with  its  composite  nature.  Hence  the  change 
which  demonstrated  its  transiency  and  dissolved  its  complexity  re- 
quired some  explanation.  The  appeal  first  made  was  of  course  to 
efficient  causes  to  explain  the  collocations  and  changes,  but  the  Greek 
mind  also  wanted  to  know  what  the  "  material"  causes  of  sensible 
reality  were  and  these  it  conceived  as  some  sort  of  stuff  or  substance 


372  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which  might  constitute  the  nature  of  composite  things  rather  than  ex- 
plain how  they  became  composite.  Now  "  material  "  causes  have 
always  been  associated  with  the  idea  of  more  or  less  identity  between 
antecedent  and  consequent,  so  that  the  most  natural  assumption  for  the 
Greek  mind  to  make  in  proposing  the  "  material  "  cause  of  reality  was 
to  suppose  that  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  compounds  would  be 
found  in  the  elements,  and  this  fact  could  well  be  taken  as  a  justifica- 
tion for  the  extension  of  the  meaning  of  the  term  applied  to  composite 
wholes  to  that  of  the  elements.  In  this  manner  the  term  "  matter  "  was 
naturally  extended  from  the  sensible  to  the  supersensible  world  of  atoms. 
Now  while  the  conception  "  matter"  was  before  applied  exclusively 
to  the  sensible  and  "  phenomenal  "  world,  it  now  applied  indiffer- 
ently to  the  transient  and  permanent  reality,  both  the  "  phenomenal" 
and  the  "  non-phenomenal "  condition  of  substance,  and  without  any 
consciousness  of  contradiction  or  paradox.  Becoming  applicable  to 
the  persistent  or  permanent  elements  out  of  which  sensible  reality  was 
formed,  it  denoted  a  fact  which  did  not  require  explanation  as  did  the 
sensible  "  material"  world  of  previous  thought,  and  all  that  was  left 
to  account  for  was  the  transition  from  one  condition  to  another,  not  the 
passage  from  nothing  to  reality,  as  the  theory  of  creative  causality 
was  afterwards  conceived.  We  shall  discover  later  another  and  simi- 
lar extension  of  the  meaning  of  the  term  ' '  matter  "  as  conceived  in 
modern  times.  But  in  ancient  materialism  the  inclusion  of  the  idea  of 
"  matter"  in  the  supersensible  availed  to  evade  a  problem  which  is 
most  naturally  suggested  by  the  distinction  between  sensible  and  super- 
sensible reality.  This  is  the  question  of  the  right  to  denominate  by 
the  same  term  implying  their  identity  facts  whose  distinction  as  sen- 
sible and  supersensible  implies  a  difference.  They  may  be  partly 
identical  and  partly  different,  or  wholly  different.  They  could  not  be 
wholly  identical  without  being  exposed  to  the  accusation  that  they 
really  explained  nothing  in  that  they  only  substituted  one  "  phenom- 
enal "  reality  as  the  antecedent  of  another  when  it  was  "  phenomenal  " 
reality  that  asked  for  causal  explanation.  Hence  the  choice  had  to  be 
between  the  two  alternatives,  partial  identity  and  difference  or  total 
difference.  The  former  was  the  position  of  materialism  and  the  latter 
of  spiritualism  as  developed  later.  But  ancient  materialism  in  taking 
the  course  which  it  adopted  did  not  discover  clearly,  if  at  all,  the  prob- 
lem involved  in  this  extension  of  the  concept  "  matter"  to  denote  a 
world  of  reality  which  it  had  to  distinguish  so  radically  from  the  sen- 
sible world.  If  it  had  been  content  with  "  phenomenal  "  causation  it 
might  have  been  different,  but  instead  of  this  it  insisted  upon  the 


MA  TERIALISM.  373 

supersensible  explanation  of  sensible  reality  and  it  was  a  grave  question 
whether  it  did  not  either  evade  an  issue  or  beg  the  question  in  calling 
this  "  non-phenomenal  "  world  "  matter."  Plato  faced  this  problem 
and  had  his  solution,  and  it  refused  to  extend  the  conception  of  matter 
to  include  both  realities.  He  retained  "matter"  for  the  "phe- 
nomenal "  world  of  change  and  adopted  "  ideas  "  for  the  supersensible 
world,  by  which  he  meant  the  formative,  active,  permanent  and  teleo- 
logical  principles  determining  the  sensible  cosmic  order  whose  origin, 
meaning  and  tendencies  had  to  be  made  intelligible  by  them.  But  the 
Epicureans  did  not  see  that  it  was  the  differences  between  the  sensible 
and  supersensible  worlds  that  remained  unexplained  by  their  concep- 
tion of  the  process  of  evolution,  as  with  all  theories  that  rest  wholly 
satisfied  with  the  principle  of  identity  or  material  causes  alone  in  the 
explanation  of  things.  They  had  started  to  explain  the  world  by  an 
application  of  the  principle  of  material  causation  based  upon  identity 
in  all  its  details,  and  were  consistent  enough  both  in  their  admission 
of  a  soul  other  than  the  organism  and  in  the  assumption  of  the  persist- 
ence of  motion,  but  they  did  not  see  or  explain  the  rise  of  "  phe- 
nomena," functions,  modes  of  activity,  properties,  etc.,  in  connection 
with  organisms  or  composite  wholes,  that  is,  modes  which  were  not 
present  in  the  elements.  The  principle  of  identity  which  lay  at  the 
basis  of  their  whole  causal  procedure  generally  did  not  account  for 
these  increments  to  the  totality  of  existence.  These  modes  were  not 
found  in  the  antecedents  and  must  according  to  the  standard  of  explan- 
ation adopted  be  independent  facts  of  some  kind.  Now  what  we're  the 
causes  of  these  additional  facts?  A  step  in  the  direction  of  the 
admission  of  efficient  in  addition  to  material  causes  was  made  in  the 
recognition  of  the  initiative  agency  of  free  movement  laterally  in  the 
atoms  to  produce  compounds,  but  we  have  found  this  inconsistent  with 
the  system  on  other  grounds,  and  without  it,  or  some  equivalent 
efficient  causal  agency  the  increments  cannot  be  accounted  for  on  the 
assumptions  of  the  ancient  materialism. 

Ancient  materialism  did  not  survive  Graeco-Roman  civilization, 
having  been  supplanted  by  the  spiritualism  of  Christianity,  until  the 
Renaissance  and  modern  science  revived  it  with  improvements  and 
changes,  effected  by  conceptions  and  facts  of  which  the  Greek  knew 
very  little  and  in  some  cases  did  not  suspect.  What  is  implied  by 
Chemistry  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  great  doctrines  of  Copernican 
astronomy  and  Newtonian  gravitation,  on  the  other,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  immense  mass  of  facts  which  led  to  and  confirmed  these  hypotheses, 
was  not  suspected  by  the  Greek.     To  the  ancients  "  nature  "  was  much 


374  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

more  mysterious  than  to  the  modern  scientist  and  general  observer  of 
its  course.  Though  we  find  the  consciousness  of  a  fixed  order  of 
things  even  in  the  mythological  conceptions  belonging  to  the  anthropo- 
morphic period  of  reflection,  namely,  the  idea  of  fate,  and  that  of  in- 
variable mechanical ' '  law  "  in  the  late  period  of  speculation  character- 
ized by  the  materialists  and  a  substitute  for  "fate,"  yet  this  "law" 
was  a  very  abstract  one  and  not  worked  out  in  concrete  phenomena  by 
the  use  of  "  secondary  "  causes,  as  modern  science  does  it.  The  con- 
ception was  the  vague  general  one  that  came  from  the  observation  of 
the  most  general  phenomena  of  nature,  and  was  the  reflex  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  power  to  which  all  finite  things  were  subordinated,  and 
subordinated  in  a  way  that  made  no  room  for  intelligent  and  moral 
action  in  the  system,  which  was  always  conceived  by  antiquity  as 
capricious.  But  there  was  mystery  enough  left  in  nature  after  this 
universal  "law"  was  admitted  to  make  room  for  all  sorts  of  super- 
natural hypotheses,  especially  that  the  mode  of  collocating  the  falling 
atoms  in  the  Epicurean  system  appeared  too  simple  and  nai've  to  satisfy 
all  questions.  Hence  in  spite  of  the  recognition  of  universal  "  law" 
there  was  room  for  such  hypotheses  as  Aristotle's  doctrine  that  the 
stars  were  "  divine,"  the  Christian  interposition  of  God  to  create  the 
supersensible  realities  which  might  form  themselves  into  worlds  in 
various  ways,  the  later  direct  action  of  God  to  sustain  the  celestial 
bodies  in  their  places  or  their  motions,  and  various  types  of  miracles 
to  explain  the  ' '  phenomena  "  that  were  apparent  exceptions  to  this 
universal  "  law." 

But  modern  science  improved  the  atomic  doctrine  so  that  it  could 
really  or  apparently  solve  problems  which  the  ancients,  if  they  had 
fully  realized  them,  would  have  been  obliged  to  abandon  as  inexplic- 
able by  their  assumptions.  For  instance,  after  admitting  that  impact 
due  to  the  lateral  swerving  of  the  atoms  resulted  in  rebounding,  how 
could  the  ancient  materialist  either  obtain  a  reunion  or  assure  any  fix- 
ture to  his  collocations.  Even  his  mechanical  union  could  not  remain 
with  any  permanence  whatever  on  his  own  principles.  Hence  he 
needed  chemical  affinity  to  both  prevent  immediate  separation  after 
swerving  had  produced  contact.  Again  I  have  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  ancient  atomism  could  not  account  for  the  appearance  of  new- 
qualities  in  the  compounds  that  were  not  found  in  the  elements  by  any 
application  of  the  principle  of  identity,  especially  that  it  took  a  mon- 
istic view  of  the  nature  of  the  atoms.  These  were  supposed  to  be  all 
of  the  same  kind  and  differed  only  in  shape,  size,  weight,  etc.,  that  is 
quantitatively,  not  qualitatively.     Nothing  was  said  about  their  pos- 


MA  TERIA  LISM.  375 

sessing  individually  all  the  qualities,  as  in  the  Leibnitzian  monads, 
which  might  account  for  the  variable  and  multiple  qualities  of  sensible 
reality.  Anaxagoras  solved  this  question  by  supposing  that  the  original 
elements,  homoiomeriae,  differed  in  kind  but  represented  in  nature  the 
quality  which  appeared  in  the  compound.  That  is,  the  elements  car- 
ried over  into  their  compound  the  qualities  which  it  possessed,  so  that 
the  doctrine  of  "  material"  causation  was  consistently  adjusted  in  his 
system,  efficient  causality  having  been  invoked  in  the  activity  of  reason 
disposing  the  cosmic  order  of  composition  or  collocation.  The  homoio- 
meriae  differed  in  kind  in  comparison  with  each  other,  but  not  in  com- 
parison with  their  compounds,  except  as  these  compounds  represented 
different  collocations  or  combinations  of  elements,  and  established 
an  identity  between  the  elementary  and  the  composite  condition  of 
"  matter,"  intelligence  being  the  agent  of  the  combination.  But  the 
Epicureans  could  not  take  this  view  of  the  case,  for  the  reason  that 
they  admitted  no  intelligent  disposing  agent  and  there  were  no  differ- 
ences of  kind  between  the  atoms,  so  that  the  principle  of  identity  em- 
bodied in  their  "  material  "  causality  had  a  variation  before  it  which  it 
could  not  explain,  even  though  its  mechanical  conception  of  efficient 
causality  in  the  lateral  swerving  of  the  atoms  be  admitted  either  as  a 
fact  or  as  sufficient  to  account  for  the  combination  of  them. 

But  the  modern  atomic  doctrine  got  rid  of  all  these  difficulties 
attending  the  application  of  the  principle  of  identity  to  two  worlds  and 
of  a  superintending  or  disposing  creator  by  affirming  frankly  the  dif- 
ference in  kind  of  the  atoms  and  the  installation  of  a  system  of  internal 
"forces"  which  would  supplant  the  necessity  of  an  appeal  to  external 
agencies  like  intelligence.  The  assumptions  of  qualitative  differences 
in  the  atoms  and  of  internal  "  forces  "  were  complementary  of  each 
other,  as  the  modern  view  of  the  atomic  and  supersensible  reality  was 
a  sort  of  compromise  between  the  conceptions  of  Anaxagoras  and 
Democritus.  While  it  assumes  qualitative  differences  in  the  elements 
it  does  not  assume  numerically  as  many  kinds  of  elements  as  the 
Anaxagorean  theory  has  to  do,  in  order  to  explain  all  the  differences 
in  the  sensible  world,  but  introduces  the  conception  of  internal  modifi- 
cations or  the  evolution  of  actual  qualities  from  latent  or  potential 
capacities  in  the  combination  of  the  elements,  thus  not  making  the 
number  of  elements  equal  to  all  the  observable  qualities  of  sensible 
reality.  On  the  other  hand,  while  assuming  the  capacity  of  modifica- 
tions internally  initiated  to  account  for  qualitative  differences  in  com- 
pounds that  were  not  found  in  the  elements,  this  conception  was  lim- 
ited by  the  admission  of  a  limited  qualitative  difference  among  the 


376  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

atoms.  It  was  possible  to  have  been  content  with  one  or  the  other  of 
the  assumptions,  either  the  Anaxagorean  involving  its  conception  of 
differences  equal  to  those  of  sensible  reality,  with  internal  forces  only 
to  combine  them,  or  the  Democritean  involving  absolute  identity  and 
simplicity  in  the  atoms,  with  internal  forces  to  modify  the  modes  of 
activity  represented  by  the  qualitative  differences  in  sensible  reality. 
But  modern  atomism  has  adopted  both  hypotheses  with  limitations  and 
qualification,  possibly  for  greater  security  from  difficulties.  But  what- 
ever the  influence  that  led  to  it,  the  assumption  is  as  described.  The 
Leibnitzian  monads,  which  are  essentially  atomic  in  their  nature,  were 
a  sort  of  combination  of  all  conceptions  inasmuch  as  each  individual 
possessed  all  the  complexity  qualitatively  that  the  sensible  world  pos- 
sesses with  only  quantitative  differences  in  the  qualities  possessed  as 
compared  with  other  monads,  and  without  any  mechanical  or  chem- 
ical influence  upon  each  other.  The  general  scientific  neglect  of  this 
conception,  however,  makes  it  unnecessary  to  more  than  mention  it  in 
this  connection  and  only  to  show  its  logical  lineage.  The  actual  de- 
velopment of  the  materialistic  theory,  Leibnitz  claiming  that  his  was 
not  materialistic,  was  in  the  direction  of  the  assumptions  just  outlined 
previous  to  the  observations  about  Leibnitz.  But  recently,  in  the 
speculation  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  William  Crookes  and  others, 
there  has  been  a  reversion  to  the  ancient  assumption  that  all  the  atoms 
were  qualitatively  alike,  with  a  tendency  to  believe  that  even  the 
"  atoms"  are  not  perfectly  simple,  but  compounds  of  some  still  more 
simple  and  ultimate  realities,  though  they  may  still  surmount  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  ancient  theory  by  the  supposition  of  internal  "  forces," 
or  latent  capacities  for  variation  of  activity,  to  account  for  the  differ- 
ences of  sensible  reality.  How  these  assumptions  affect  their  explana- 
tion may  be  a  matter  of  doubt.  With  that  question  I  have  nothing  to 
do  at  present.  I  am  only  indicating  in  what  manner  modern  atomic 
materialism  endeavors  to  eliminate  the  difficulties  encountered  by  the 
ancient.     The  development  of  the  modern  doctrine  is  as  follows. 

First  we  have  Copernican  astronomy  which  destroyed  the  ancient 
conception  that  the  earth  was  the  center  of  things,  or  the  point  toward 
which  all  things  moved,  or  at  least  the  point  from  which  all  things  had 
to  be  explained  and  estimated.  The  whole  naive  sensible  idea  of  ..the 
universe  was  completely  altered  by  it,  forcing  speculative  thought  to 
reconstruct  its  theories  of  the  formation  of  the  cosmos  in  many  respects. 
Then  came  Newtonian  gravitation  which  placed  in  matter,  instead 
of  the  direct  intervention  of  God,  the  power  to  influence  the  behavior 
of  the  planetary  and  celestial  system  and  to  balance  the  motions  whose 


MA  TERIA  LISM.  377 


conception  Copernicus  had  modified.  It  was  quite  natural  that  Newton 
should  be  attacked  for  materialism  and  atheism,  as  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  his  use  of  an  attractive  "  force,"  in  spite  of  his  actual  quali- 
fication of  the  principle  by  the  statement  that  it  was  a  mathematical 
representation  of  the  relations  rather  than  an  indication  of  efficient 
causes,  suggested  an  origin  in  matter  instead  of  outside  it  of  the 
influence  that  regulated  the  motions  and  positions  of  cosmic  bodies. 
Then  came  the  nebular  hypotheses  of  Laplace  which  did  for  time  in 
the  cosmos  what  Newton  had  done  for  space.  It  used  the  dissipation 
of  heat  and  attendant  or  concomitant  consequences  to  explain  the 
gradual  formation  of  the  present  collocations  of  matter  in  the  universe 
instead  of  appealing  to  supernatural  action.  Finally  Darwinian  evo- 
lution did  for  the  organic  world  in  time  what  Laplace  had  done  for  the 
inorganic  and  Newton  did  for  space  in  both  the  organic  and  inorganic. 
Nothing  was  left  for  appeal  to  immaterial  "forces"  in  any  of  these 
great  hypotheses.  In  addition  to  these,  out  of  alchemy  came  Chemistry 
with  its  doctrine  of  affinity  between  atoms  to  explain  their  combina- 
tions, and  with  the  assumption  that  the  elements  differed  qualitatively 
from  each  other.  The  conception  of  internal  "  forces  "  became  so  ex- 
tended as  to  wholly  supplant  that  of  supernatural  interference  or  action 
as  conceived  by  the  period  intervening  between  the  decay  of  Grseco- 
Roman  civilization  and  the  revival  of  modern  learning.  The  atomic 
doctrine  was  so  conceived  as  to  account  for  all  the  real  or  supposed 
differences  and  identities  between  the  sensible  and  supersensible  worlds 
and  to  leave  no  room  for  external  efficient  causes  as  previously  con- 
ceived. 

Ancient  materialism,  if  called  upon  to  account  for  the  sensible  dif- 
ferences in  things  with  its  principle  of  identity,  "  material  "  causality, 
and  only  quantitative  differences  in  the  atoms  and  no  creative  function 
in  such  efficient  causes  as  it  imagined,  would  have  to  say  that  all  quali- 
tative differences  were  illusions,  and  not  representative  of  reality.  It 
would  very  well  seek  justification  for  this  view  in  the  psychology  of 
the  Sophists  who  maintained  the  subjectivity  and  relativity  of  all 
sensory  "appearances."  In  this  way  the  supersensible  world  could 
very  well  be  supposed  to  retain  its  identity  in  the  "phenomenal,"  in 
so  far  as  its  real  nature  was  concerned,  while  the  appearance  of  their 
differences  qualitatively  would  be  an  illusion.  The  illusory  nature  of 
some  of  the  sense  judgments  was  actually  admitted  by  some  of  the 
materialists.  But  there  was  a  Nemesis  in  this  concession  to  what  may 
be  called  the  idealistic  criteria  of  truth,  not  because  the  subjective  point 
of  view  in  any  way  displaces  the  pi-oblem  of  transiency  and  permanence, 


37S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

but  because  the  original  basis  of  the  materialistic  judgment  was  what 
was  supposed  to  take  place  in  the  sensible  world.  The  ground  for 
the  persistence  of  motion  was  the  sensory  observation  of  what  weight 
effected  in  causing  bodies  to  fall  in  empty  space  or  a  non-resisting 
medium.  But  we  cannot  play  fast  and  loose  with  sense  perception, 
accepting  it  when  it  favors  our  assumptions  and  rejecting  it  when  we 
get  into  difficulties  with  it.  We  can  hardly  accept  sensory  criteria  for 
the  identities  and  reject  them  for  the  differences  in  the  sensible  world. 
Our  judgments  must  be  consistent  and  drawn  from  the  same  source. 
But  the  modern  reconstruction  of  the  theory  eliminates  these  difficulties 
partly  by  the  supposition  of  qualitative  differences  in  the  atoms  and 
partly  by  its  conception  of  internal  "forces."  What  the  qualitative 
differences  might  not  explain  the  internal  activities  might  and  vice 
versa.  On  the  one  hand,  the  discovery  of  a  limitation  in  the  number 
of  elements  made  it  necessary  to  likewise  limit  the  influence  of  quali- 
tative differences  which  did  not  correspond  to  the  rich  variety  of 
nature,  and  on  the  other  the  evident  limitations  to  variation  and  pro- 
duction of  qualitative  differences  in  the  various  elements  was  very  well 
complemented  by  the  actual  variety  of  qualitative  distinction  in  the 
atoms,  so  that  between  the  two  assumptions  almost  any  difficulty  could 
be  surmounted.  In  addition  to  this,  the  subjective  point  of  view  was 
admitted  to  explain  certain  facts  without  asserting  that  they  were  illu- 
sions, even  though  the  sensory  presentation  did  not  "represent"  or 
show  any  features  of  identity  between  itself  and  its  cause.  The 
principle  of  efficient  causality  could  be  invoked  to  eliminate  the  assump- 
tion of  illusion  while  subjectivity  could  be  invoked  to  suggest  the  place 
of  non-sensory  judgment  in  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  the 
reality  which  was  to  be  explained  by  the  atomic  theory.  But  even 
with  all  its  advantages  in  this  complex  adjustment  to  the  needs  of  the 
materialistic  doctrine,  the  recognition  of  the  subjective  limitation  of 
"knowledge"  or  the  "  non-representative "  nature  of  sensory  judg- 
ments, so  to  speak,  carries  with  it  the  suggestion  of  revolutionary 
methods  and  postulates.  It  insinuates  that  the  idealistic  method  is 
the  proper  one,  and  if  we  accept  the  position  that  idealism  is  in  all  its 
aspects  opposed  to  materialism,  there  is  in  this  admission  of  the  ideal- 
istic postulate  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  materialism.  But  distin- 
guishing, as  I  do  here,  between  the  epistemological  question  of  the 
source  of  "  knowledge,"  in  which  the  idealist  may  be  correct  and  the 
metaphysical  question  of  the  nature  and  action  of  the  "  real,"  whatever 
the  source  of  our  "  knowledge"  of  it,  the  materialist  may  still  be  con- 
sistent if  he  abides  by  the  position  that  intellectual  instead  of  sensory 


MATERIALISM.  379 

processes  shall  be  the  determinants  of  his  judgments,  and  if  he  main- 
tains that,  whatever  the  nature  of  any  reality  assumed  the  relations 
between  it  and  its  "phenomena"  remain  the  same  and  that  it  is  his 
problem  to  determine  those  relations  in  terms  of  the  conception  of 
fixed  "  law,"  or  uniformities  of  coexistence  and  sequence  which  better 
consist  with  the  fact  of  observation  than  ideas  that  at  least  apparently 
imply  their  arbitrary  variability. 

But  omitting  the  point  of  attack  by  idealism  for  the  present,  the 
circumstance  to  be  remarked  about  the  change  from  the  view  that  all 
qualitative  differences  in  the  sensible  world  were  represented  in  the 
supersensible  world  only  by  quantitative  differences,  to  the  view  that 
there  were  qualitative  differences  in  the  supersensible  as  well  as  in 
the  sensible  world,  even  though  the  conception  of  "qualitative"  and 
"  quantitative"  had  changed  in  the  meanwhile,  was  a  step  in  the  di- 
rection of  abandoning  the  simplicity  of  ancient  materialism.  It  sup- 
posed the  self-existence  of  various  kinds  of  matter  or  reality,  which 
nevertheless  are  so  harmoniously  adjusted  to  each  other  in  their  rela- 
tions and  interactions  as  to  suggest  the  same  questions  that  are  pro- 
posed by  the  various  relations,  interactions,  and  similarities  and  dif- 
ferences in  the  sensible  world,  questions  that  ought  not  to  be  asked  of 
a  world  supposed  to  be  inexplicable  in  every  respect.  In  ancient  ma- 
terialism the  only  query  possible  would  regard  the  matter  of  number, 
that  is,  why  the  atoms  should  be  plural  at  all.  The  modern  query 
would  have  to  concern  qualitative  differences  as  well  as  numerical 
plurality  in  the  ultimate  elements  of  reality.  This  increases  the  com- 
plexity of  the  modern  theory.  That  it  proposed  a  speculative  question 
beyond  the  assumed  fact  of  qualitative  differences  is  shown  by  the 
circumstances  that  the  atomic  elements  became  subject  to  classification 
by  Mendelejeff  with  the  result  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  apparently 
became  applicable  to  the  very  atoms  !  Originally  the  atomic  theory 
assumed  that  the  elements  were  underivable,  ultimate  and  eternal,  but 
this  explanation  of  them  from  some  more  ultimate  and  simple  form 
of  matter  subjected  the  very  elements  to  a  derivation  which  Greek 
materialism  intended  to  stop  with  the  sensible  cosmos.  This  conclu- 
sion is  an  abandonment  of  the  atomic  theory  of  matter,  and  if  ma- 
terialism remains  at  all  after  it  the  conception  of  matter  has  changed 
to  the  Spinozistic,  and  only  internal  "  forces,"  whatever  these  mean 
after  this  change,  are  left  to  explain  the  qualitative  differences  of 
"  matter"  as  it  is  sensibly  known. 

There  is  another  consideration  which  gave  ancient  materialism 
some  advantages.     Inertia  played  a  very  small  part  in  it.     The  initial 


3 So  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

impulse  to  the  doctrine  of  falling  bodies  did  not  suggest  it  as  a  funda- 
mental property  of  matter,  nor  was  it  required  to  keep  bodies  in 
motion  when  this  was  once  initiated.  Anaxagoras  and  Aristotle 
assumed  it,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously.  Otherwise  there 
was  nothing  to  justify  the  supposition  of  reason  or  the  "  prime  mover" 
which  was  postulated  to  originate  the  motion  and  cosmic  order  about 
them.  But  neither  they  nor  the  materialists  worked  out  the  doctrine 
of  inertia  explicitly.  It  would,  in  fact,  most  probably  have  given  the 
materialists  some  trouble,  as  its  primary  conception  was  that  of  the 
natural  and  essential  inactivity  of  matter,  ' '  being  "  having  always  been 
conceived  as  naturally  at  rest,  and  so  requiring  either  external  or  self- 
activity  to  start  it  in  motion.  To  have  assumed  inertia  as  the  essen- 
tial condition  of  matter  in  the  former  sense  and  in  the  sense  that  all 
*'  being  "  was  naturally  at  rest  would  be,  for  the  materialist  suicidal, 
as  it  was  the  external  supernatural  agencies  which  he  wished  to  banish 
from  the  government  of  things.  But  fortunately  he  could  rely  upon 
certain  sensible  facts  to  suggest  a  natural  and  internal  influence  to  orig- 
inate and  continue  motion  in  bodies.  This,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
weight.  We  shall  see  again  what  use  the  spiritualistic  movement 
made  of  the  ancient  conception  of  inertia  where  it  was  assumed  or 
admitted  at  all.  But  it  had  not  always  retained  the  meaning  which 
it  first  had.  As  I  have  said  above,  and  repeat  for  emphasis  and 
clearness,  it  first  meant  the  original  and  natural  inactivity  of  "  being  " 
or  matter  (substance) .  There  were  two  alternatives  before  the  mind 
in  the  explanation  of  motion  or  change  under  this  assumption  of  the 
natural  inactivity  of  matter.  The  first  is  self-activity,  a  conception 
which  ultimately  took  the  form  of  internal  "  forces "  wherever  the 
materialistic  theory  prevailed  or  influenced  the  mode  of  thought.  The 
second  was  external  agency,  which  was  the  direction  taken  by  Aris- 
totle and  Christian  spiritualism.  This  latter  position  also  assumed  that 
matter  was  incapable  of  initiating  its  own  motion,  so  that  the  assump- 
tion of  inertia  implied  by  it  involved  two  conceptions,  the  idea  of  orig- 
inal rest  or  inactivity  and  the  idea  of  inability  of  matter  to  initiate  activity 
or  motion  of  itself  or  in  itself.  But  the  materialist  of  that  time  had  no 
occasion,  as  he  thought,  to  take  either  of  these  conceptions  of  the  case 
which  would  force  him  to  accept  a  supernatural  agency  to  originate 
motion,  because  he  had  a  perfetuum  mobile  in  weight,  which  he  con- 
ceived as  an  internal  agent.  This  he  did  not  imagine  to  have  initiated 
motion  once  for  all  and  then  leave  it  to  inertia  to  explain  its  continu- 
ance, but  he  made  it  a  creatio  continua  of  motion  and  hence  he  had 
no  use  at  all  for  the  modern  idea  of  inertia.     Why  then  does  modern 


MA  TERIALISM.  38  J 

thought  make  it  so  important  a  property  of   matter?     Why  has  the 
materialist  introduced  it  and  retained  it  in  his  system? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  that  he  has  borrowed  or  stolen  it 
from  the  spiritualistic  philosophy  which  he  aimed  to  refute  and  does 
not  acknowledge  its  pedigree  nor  see  its  contradiction  with  his  own 
system,  if  interpreted  in  its  old  implications.  Hence  he  had  to  partly 
change  its  import  to  make  it  consist  with  his  assumption  of  the  per- 
petuity of  motion  and  to  escape  its  contradiction  with  the  idea  of  in- 
ternal "  forces."  Having  abandoned  the  assumption  that  rest  was  the 
original  and  natural  condition  of  things,  since  he  had  in  weight  a  cause 
of  perpetual  motion,  an  internal  agency,  he  could  introduce  the  idea  of 
inertia  into  his  system  only  on  the  condition  that  he  changed  its  mean- 
ing. This  he  proceeded  to  do.  He  di'opped  its  implication  of  orig- 
inal rest,  as  he  was  compelled  to  do,  and  conceived  it  as  the  negation 
of  causality  of  any  kind,  and  hence  defined  it  as  the  incapability  of 
producing  either  motion  or  rest.  This  conception  leaves  open  the 
question  whether  motion  or  rest  is  the  original  condition  of  "being" 
or  matter,  and  simply  implies  that  either  of  them  will  be  the  perpetual 
condition  of  reality  if  it  is  the  original  one,  unless  some  cause  inter- 
venes to  change  this  condition.  Whether  this  cause  shall  be  internal 
or  external,  "natural"  or  "supernatural"  is  not  implied  or  deter- 
mined. The  conception  implies  only  that  matter  is  unable  to  effect 
any  change  either  of  motion  or  rest.  But  even  this  had  to  be  carefully 
limited  to  consist  with  the  assumption  of  internal  "  forces,"  which  was 
made  to  escape  the  necessity  of  admitting  the  external.  Inertia  had  to 
be  limited  to  the  idea  of  incapacity  to  alter  the  condition  of  motion  or 
rest  in  the  subject  of  it,  and  not  necessarily  to  deny  the  power  to  influ- 
ence change  in  the  condition  of  objects  or  other  realities  than  the  sub- 
ject of  internal  "  forces."  The  difficulties  involved  in  this  tight-rope 
process  of  escaping  a  precipice  will  be  considered  again.  But  it  cer- 
tainly offered  an  advantage  to  the  theory  in  the  chance  to  assume  the 
action  of  internal  causes  acting  on  external  objects,  while  it  retained  all 
the  older  implications  denying  the  possibility  of  self-motion.  This,  of 
course,  involved  the  distinction  between  self-motion  and  self-activity, 
the  one  being  denied  and  the  other  affirmed,  at  least  tacitly.  The  ad- 
vantage of  this  position  to  materialism  lay  in  the  use  of  a  term  which 
denied  by  implication  and  historical  association  any  assumption  of  free 
spontaneous  motion  laterally  or  vertically,  as  it  had  been  granted  lat- 
erally by  Epicurus,  and  which  at  the  same  time  assumed  a  condition  of 
things  that  justified  an  appeal  to  external  causality  to  explain  change 
when  it  was  desirable  to  resort  to  this,  and  also  in  the  use  of  a  concep- 


382  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tion  to  consist,  under  proper  definition,  with  internal  causes  which 
might  be  assumed  at  pleasure,  provided  they  did  not  explain  the  sub- 
ject's own  motion,  to  escape  the  resort  to  anything  like  supernatural  and 
self-initiation  of  motion  in  the  subject.  In  other  words,  the  advantage 
lay  in  the  free  use  of  assumptions  which  were  contradictory,  in  the 
old  view,  if  you  could  succeed  either  in  concealing  the  contradiction 
or  in  producing  any  real  or  apparent  consistency  of  the  idea  of  inertia 
with  that  of  internal  "  forces."  This  latter  alternative  was  effected 
by  permitting  the  invention  of  any  number  of  internal  "  forces,"  pro- 
vided they  had  no  analogies  with  intelligent  volition  which  involves 
self-motion,  and  by  limiting  the  conception  of  inertia  to  the  inability 
of  the  subject  to  move  itself  or  to  prevent  self-motion,  a  position  which 
left  wholly  indeterminate  the  question  whether  motion  or  rest  was  the 
prior  natural  condition  of  matter.  In  other  words,  the  materialist  ad- 
mitted just  so  much  of  the  spiritualist's  conception  of  the  problem  as 
would  enable  him  to  escape  the  assumption  of  self-initiative  for  every- 
thing and  just  enough  of  the  materialist's  to  exclude  intelligence  from  the 
internal  "  forces  "  which  even  the  spiritualist  was  quite  ready  to  grant. 
The  logical  advantage  of  this  position  is  apparently  invulnerable.  As 
all  explanation  was  occupied  with  change  from  one  condition  to  another, 
this  position  enabled  the  materialist  to  agree  with  the  spiritualist  in 
two  assumptions  while  he  confused  one  with  the  other.  The  first  was 
the  doctrine  that  all  initiation  and  cessation  of  motion,  or  alteration  in 
the  direction  of  motion,  involved  causation  outside  the  subject  of  the 
motion,  and  the  second  was  the  doctrine  that  all  change  of  the  status 
quo  in  matter  must  have  a  cause.  The  latter  axiom  is  compatible 
with  any  cause  of  "phenomena,"  internal  or  external,  free  or  deter- 
mined :  the  former  excludes  motion  from  the  category  of  internal 
causes.  The  second  or  general  maxim  enabled  the  materialist,  if  he 
chose  or  the  facts  permitted,  to  assign  internal  causes  for  all  changes 
but  the  motion  of  the  subject  of  it,  and  the  first,  limiting  inertia,  enabled 
him  to  concede  a  field  for  external  causality  without  committing  him- 
self to  the  admission  that  motion  per  se  was  necessarily  "  phenom- 
enal "  or  had  a  beginning,  whatever  might  be  thought  about  alterations 
in  its  direction  or  its  cessation.  This  external  cause,  or  cause  external 
to  the  subject  of  the  motion  to  be  explained,  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  as  a  consequence  of  accepting  causality  of  any  kind,  implies  the 
idea  of  internal  causality  in  the  agent  initiating  the  "phenomenon," 
if  change  as  a  fact  in  the  cosmos  is  admitted  at  all,  but  with  the  pro- 
viso that  the  internal  causation  for  the  produced  change  is  not  in  the 
subject  of  that  change.     Now  if  that  cause  can  be  put  in  other  atoms 


MATERIALISM.  383 

than  the  one  affected,  or  whose  motion  is  to  be  explained,  the  limited 
liabilities  of  inertia  are  satisfied,  while  the  supernatural  is  either 
really  or  apparently  eliminated,  as  we  are  supposed  not  to  transcend 
"matter"  for  our  necessary  causes,  the  origin  of  motion  being  no 
longer  implied  by  the  doctrine  of  inertia  and  the  existence  of  internal 
causes  of  some  kind  in  matter  being  assumed  or  admitted.  In  the  last 
conception  of  the  problem,  therefore,  having  gotten  a  conception  of 
inertia  which  did  not  commit  him  to  any  assumption  regarding  the 
primary  condition  of  matter,  whether  of  motion  or  rest,  and  which 
enabled  him  to  use  external  causality  for  the  explanation  of  changes  in 
the  direction  of  empirically  observed  motion  without  going  beyond  the 
"phenomenal"  antecedent  before  him,  this  being  external,  the  mate- 
rialist could  abandon  the  regressus  ad  infinitum  which  "  first  "  causes 
apparently  demand,  and  consistently  with  the  limited  liability  of  inertia 
throw  the  whole  responsibility  for  the  explanation  of  events  of  all 
kinds  upon  the  interpretation  of  internal  causes  and  their  mode  of  in- 
fluencing external  objects,  and  which,  though  they  could  not  originate 
motion  in  the  subject  of  it,  might  cause  it  in  the  object.  This  brings 
the  problem  right  to  the  threshold  of  the  controversy  between  the 
"  mechanical"  theory  of  materialism  and  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz. 
But  of  this  in  its  place.  The  point  to  be  emphasized  at  present  is  the 
advantage  which  materialism  had  gained  by  accepting  the  general  idea 
of  inertia  while  modifying  it  to  suit  assumptions  which  the  doctrine  of 
inertia  did  not  originally  make,  while  it  could  suborn  the  idea  of  in- 
ternal causes  under  cover  of  empirical  facts  which  took  the  problem 
out  of  the  supersensible  world  and  transferred  it  to  the  sensible,  though 
it  seemed  still  to  be  discussing  a  theory  of  creation  that  could  only  begin 
in  the  supersensible  world. 

To  look  at  the  historical  steps  in  this  development,  we  have  the 
philosophy  of  Anaxagoras  and  Aristotle,  and  at  least  to  some  extent 
that  of  Plato,  assuming  the  inertia  of  matter  in  their  resort  to  creative 
or  formative  intelligence,  and  the  same  idea  had  prevailed  in  the  com- 
mon mind  more  generally  in  its  religious  and  mythological  views,  while 
it  was  probably  tacitly  assumed  by  the  materialists  in  the  practical 
affairs  of  life  when  they  were  dealing  with  "phenomenal  matter." 
But  in  their  metaphysics  they  ignored  the  assumption,  consistently  with 
their  disrespect  for  mythological  and  religious  postulates,  though  they 
did  not  object  to  calling  the  supersensible  world  "  matter"  and  obtain- 
ing the  double  advantage,  in  the  explanatory  function  of  their  theory, 
of  ignoring  "  common  sense"  conceptions  of  inertia  when  they  inter- 
fered with  the  integrity  of   their  metaphysics   and  of  eliminating  the 


3S4  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

conception  of  an  immaterial  reality  by  describing  the  supersensible  as 
"matter."  But  in  the  attempt  to  refute  materialism  in  antiquity  the 
doctrine  of  inertia  came  to  the  front.  It  was  a  strategic  point  in  theism 
to  urge  the  fact  of  inertia  in  order  to  justify  the  appeal  to  the  vis  a 
tergo  principle  of  creative  intervention  to  start  the  motion  or  change 
which  the  philosopher  was  called  upon  to  explain,  and  he  could  use  the 
assumed  identity  between  the  sensible  and  supersensible  worlds,  in  their 
essential  characteristics,  to  enforce  the  possibility  or  probability  of  his 
claim.  But  once  assumed  as  an  essential  property  of  "  matter," 
"phenomenal"  or  "  noumenal,"  sensible  or  supersensible,  it  created 
at  least  an  apparent  difficulty  in  the  materialistic  theory  wherever  any 
change  from  the  status  quo  of  things  required  an  explanation,  unless 
the  theory  could  be  modified  in  some  way.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  the 
doctrine  of  inertia  was  made  a  limited  instead  of  a  universal  postulate 
to  explain  change,  the  need  of  causes  to  take  the  place  of  what  ancient 
materialism  had  to  abandon  after  Copernican  astronomy  was  adopted 
was  supplied  by  the  internal  "forces"  of  chemical  affinity  and  of 
gravitation.  For,  although  the  attraction  of  gravitation  assumed  that 
matter  could  not  move  itself,  it  was  adapted  to  the  new  conception  of 
inertia  in  the  idea  that  it  could  influence  the  motion  or  condition  of 
other  matter.  Hence  the  conceptions  of  inertia  and  internal  "forces" 
were  so  adjusted  to  each  other  that  the  origin  of  motion  was  not  a  part 
of  the  problem  and  chemical  affinity  and  gravitation  were  convenient 
substitutes  for  causes  that  had  once  been  conceived  as  related  to  intelli- 
gent volition.  In  other  words,  the  adjustment  brought  materialism, 
reciprocity  without  freedom  and  all  the  advantages  that  belonged  to 
both.  The  limitation  of  the  area  for  the  application  of  inertia  was 
supplemented  by  a  corresponding  extention  of  the  area  for  internal 
"forces,"  having  no  special  evidence  of  being  intelligent  or  purposive. 
There  was  an  important  influence  which  fortified  this  tendency  and 
which  is  seldom  remarked  by  the  student  of  philosophy  in  its  psycho- 
logical development.  It  is  the  influence  of  experimental  science  on 
the  ideas  which  we  entertain  on  the  capacities  of  matter.  Antiquity 
simply  observed  the  course  of  events  as  they  occurred,  taking  the  part  of 
mere  spectators  of  the  drama  of  nature,  a  series  of  "phenomena" 
which  occurred  without  human  intervention.  All  philosophic  reflec- 
tion was  contemplative,  not  experimental.  No  elaborate  attempt  was 
made  to  study  nature  as  it  might  be  modified  in  its  action  by  the  human 
will,  though  men  were  familiar  enough  with  the  common  influence  of 
human  volition  on  events.  But  it  did  not  occur  to  men  to  take  seri- 
ously the  point  of  view  which  might  have  suggested  itself  to  them, 


MA  TER IALISM.  3  S5 

especially  after  the  subjective  psychology  of  the  Sophists  and  the 
"idealistic"  philosophy  of  Plato  with  its  anthropocentric  point  of 
view.  Ancient  thought,  however,  was  so  dominated  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  man's  subordination  to  nature  that  it  could  not  muster  up  suffi- 
cient courage  to  defy  it,  except  in  yEschylus,  and  the  sense  of  depend- 
ence was  so  strong  that  it  trembled  at  nature  and  fate  instead  of  trying  to 
master  them.  Consequently  between  contemplative  or  introspective 
methods  and  the  consciousness  of  subjection  to  nature,  it  could  only 
regard  events  as  the  effects  either  of  "  nature  "  or  of  the  gods.  Either 
conception  encouraged  the  idea  of  limitations  to  the  powers  of  "  na- 
ture," and  the  latter  view  required  no  assumption  of  latent  powers  in 
matter  to  account  for  variation  of  effects,  as  these  could  be  attributed 
to  the  caprices  of  divine  power.  Consequently  there  was  little  to  sug- 
gest latent  or  potential  capacities  in  matter.  But  men,  being  mere 
observers  of  an  order  that  might  originate  either  spontaneously  by 
some  internal  forces  or  by  external  creative  energy,  they  divided  on 
the  question  of  the  nature  of  that  antecedent  according  to  various  intel- 
lectual and  other  interests,  some  making  it  intelligence  and  others 
"  force"  or  inherent  properties  of  matter.  If  the  cosmos  showed  sat- 
isfactory evidence  of  purpose  in  its  collocations  and  organic  creations, 
and  the  conceptions  of  the  untutored  are  easily  satisfied  on  this  ques- 
tion, there  would  be  a  tendency  to  make  this  cause  other  than  matter. 
If  the  evidence  of  purpose  be  wanting,  then  the  explanation  will  elim- 
inate intelligent  initiation.  Now  as  both  the  series  of  events  and  the 
alternative  causes  imaginable  were  objective  and  independent  of  human 
action,  this,  being  presumably  free,  was  caused  by  neither  divine  nor 
material  agency.  But  natural  events  being  the  same  to  all  observers, 
left  the  choice  of  cause  to  prejudice  or  the  amount  of  intelligence  dis- 
played by  the  observer.  But  when  man  began  to  reflect  on  the  effect 
of  his  own  volitions  and  to  experiment  with  nature,  he  found  a  created 
order  of  facts  initiated  by  himself  and  not  spontaneously  created  either 
by  "nature"  or  by  "providence."  He  had  to  recognize,  however, 
the  limitations  of  his  own  causal  power  in  the  determination  of  events. 
He  could  not  well  ascribe  the  limiting  influence  directly  to  divine 
action,  as  his  conception  of  that  influence  was  not  such  as  to  reduce  its 
providential  plans  to  the  caprices  of  human  volition.  He  found  in  his 
experiments  that  he  could  not  produce  gold  or  silver  by  wishing  them, 
nor  by  combining  elements  ad  lib  Hum,  but  he  did  discover  that  he 
could  produce  chemical  compounds  and  make  collocations  of  matter 
which  did  not  occur  independently  of  his  volitions.  They  seemed  too 
trivial,  however,  for  explanation  by  so  august  a  reality  as  God,  who 
25 


3§6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

could  hardly  be  supposed  to  conform  at  any  time  to  the  whims  of 
man's  fancy,  scientific  or  practical,  to  institute  an  order  of  events 
which  man  would  hardly  have  supposed  to  have  been  in  the  divine 
plan  if  his  own  experimental  volitions,  themselves  presumably  free, 
had  not  occurred.  The  consequence  was  that  it  seemed  to  comport 
more  easily  with  the  idea  of  internal  "  forces  "  in  matter  to  account  for 
the  limitations  of  experimental  effort,  and  this  view  was  favored  by  the 
absence  of  clear  evidence  for  any  purposive  end  in  any  assumed  inter- 
vention of  divine  power  to  affect  the  results  which  could  not  be 
directly  traced  to  human  action.  Besides  there  was  universal  tendency 
to  save  divine  action  by  supposing  that  matter  had  no  powers  whatever 
to  produce  effects  under  the  initial  agency  of  its  own  "  forces."  Many, 
on  the  other  hand,  assumed  limitations  to  divine  power  in  the  nature 
of  matter.  Hence  men  were  quite  ready  to  admit  that  the  explanation 
of  events  might  divide  its  causal  agencies  between  God,  nature  and 
man.  But  in  proportion  as  the  divine  intervention  was  either  not  sup- 
ported by  evidences  of  its  teleology,  or  was  not  deemed  necessary  to 
explain  the  facts  of  human  experiment,  the  idea  of  internal  "forces" 
in  matter  grew  in  strength  with  a  corresponding  favor  for  the  mate- 
rialistic theory,  and  when  man  himself  was  conceived  as  a  mechanical 
product  of  the  cosmic  order,  and  hence  his  action  simply  a  little  more 
complex  form  of  mechanical  "  forces,"  the  materialistic  point  of  view 
became  universal,  having  the  simplicity  and  unity,  apparently  at  least, 
for  which  the  philosopher  has  always  been  in  search.  The  concession 
of  internal  "  forces  "  for  producing  effects  and  the  changes  which 
human  volition  could  effect  in  the  order  of  things  predisposed  specu- 
lative minds  to  take  that  course  in  their  explanations  of  "  phenomena" 
which  would  at  least  seem  to  reduce  the  source  of  events  to  as  few 
centers  as  possible,  and  matter  had  come  in  for  such  a  large  share  of 
the  "forces  "  which  affect  events  that  it  was  an  easy  step  for  the  mind 
to  universalize  its  causal  agency,  especially  as  there  were  difficulties  in 
reducing  the  cosmic  order  to  any  clear  and  evident  teleology,  even 
within  the  domain  of  the  sensible  world,  to  say  nothing  of  the  agnos- 
ticism necessary  with  regard  to  it  in  the  supersensible  world. 

A  most  important  step  in  the  confirmation  of  the  materialistic 
theory  was  the  establishment  of  the  essential  identity  between  the 
sensible  and  supersensible  realities.  It  might  have  been  suggested 
by  the  variable  limits  of  sensible  "  experience."  But  the  normal 
limits  of  this  were  so  fixed  apparently  that  no  one  but  the  philosopher 
would  suspect  the  speculative  importance  of  the  variations  actually 
observed,  and  even  this  class  was  either  too  much  addicted  to  respect 


MATERIALISM.  387 

for  sense  judgments  and  too  much  interested  in  the  acceptance  and 
defense  of  this  criterion  of  "knowledge"  to  be  spontaneously  suscep- 
tible of  sceptical  influences  in  this  direction,  or  had  too  few  facts  to 
make  any  successful  incursions  against  the  conservative  ideas  of 
"  common  sense"  in  its  convictions  about  those  limits.  Consequently 
it  took  the  help  of  the  microscope  and  telescope  to  bring  home  the 
relativity  of  sense  perception  and  its  variable  limits,  showing  that  the 
distinction  between  the  "sensible"  and  "supersensible"  worlds, 
when  any  question  of  facts  and  "experience"  was  involved,  was  not 
necessarily  qualitative  but  merely  quantitative,  if  the  latter  term  may 
be  employed  to  express  a  condition  indicated  by  the  variable  limits  of 
sense  perception.  They  simply  showed  that  it  was  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  "sensible"  capacity  that  determined  the  distinction  between 
the  various  conditions  of  matter  which  had  been  assumed  to  be  radi- 
cal, but  which  now  appears  to  represent  an  essential  identity  in  nature 
though  not  always  represented  in  a  sensible  effect  on  "knowledge." 
But  it  was  the  experimental  proof  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter 
that  operated  as  the  most  decisive  defence  of  the  application  of  the 
term  "matter"  to  the  sensible  and  supersensible  worlds  alike.  It 
showed  that  "matter"  may  disappear  from  sensible  "experience" 
altogether  in  its  normal  forms  and  yet  through  its  gravity  give  indi- 
rect testimony  to  its  continued  existence  after  it  has  apparently  been 
destroyed.  Ancient  thought  was  confronted  with  much  more  fixed 
limits  to  sensibility  than  modern  investigation  and  also  had  not 
exact  means  for  determining  conclusively  the  survival  of  material 
substance  in  all  its  changes,  and  hence  in  these  changes  certain  philos- 
ophers might  claim  with  considerable  impunity  that  matter  was  de- 
structible. But  this  contention  can  no  longer  be  made  in  modern 
times,  except  for  those  transcendental  conditions  which  are  not  acces- 
sible to  either  observation  or  experiment,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to 
have  an  opinion  one  way  or  the  other  on  such  questions  when  we 
may  insist  that  we  are  not  dealing  with  matter  beyond  its  evidential 
"phenomena."  All  that  is  meant  by  the  modern  doctrine  is  that  in 
both  the  sensible  and  supersensible  worlds  of  past  philosophic  thought 
matter  is  indestructible  and  that  it  shows  itself  identical  in  its  essential 
characteristics  in  both.  This  is  "empirical"  or  experimental  proof 
of  its  continuity  and  persistence  in  time  where  ancient  thought  could 
only  arrive  at  it  in  an  a  priori  manner,  a  method  which  had  proved  itself 
so  precarious  that  any  intellectual  interest  might  appeal  to  it  with  im- 
punity until  experiment  decided  whether  any  of  its  claims  were  true 
or  not.     But  the  experimental  proof  of  the  indestructibility  of    matter 


3SS  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

established  the  right  of  the  materialist  to  assert  at  least  a  presumption 
for  the  eternity  of  matter.  He  has  definite  proof  that  it  is  indestruc- 
tible for  all  human  effort  and  can  only  speculate  for  conditions  tran- 
scending his  powers  and  amenable  to  some  real  or  supposed  absolute. 
But  the  important  fact  to  remark  is  its  confirmation  of  the  assumption 
that  there  is  an  identity  between  the  various  conditions  of  matter  as 
the  ancient  materialism  supposed,  and  no  less  instructive  is  the  equally 
established  fact  that  certain  modes  or  functions  of  matter  are  transient 
or  "  phenomenal."  The  application  of  this  truth  to  psychological 
events  will  be  made  presently,  and  after  we  have  noticed  the  various 
ways  in  which  this  general  truth  is  illustrated  in  the  metamorphoses 
of  material  substance,  involving  the  appearance  and  disappearance  of 
"  phenomenal "  qualities.  One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  this  reten- 
tion of  identity  of  material  with  different  qualitative  manifestations 
is  the  fact  of  allotropism  in  which  the  same  substance,  for  example, 
sulphur  or  carbon,  under  different  conditions  will  show  different 
qualities,  the  difference  being  so  great  that  it  requires  special  evidence 
to  discover  that  they  are  not  distinct  substances.  Compare  charcoal 
and  the  diamond.  We  might  also  rank  H20  in  the  same  class  :  for  it 
may  appear  in  one  condition  as  invisible  vapor,  in  another  as  cloud 
or  visible  vapor,  in  another  as  water  in  a  fluid  state,  both  visible  and 
tangible,  and  finally  in  a  solid  state  as  ice.  Only  a  change  of  tempera- 
ture is  required  to  effect  these  qualitative  modifications  and  but  for 
special  means  to  determine  the  fact  no  one  would  suspect  the  identity 
of  the  substance  in  these  changes  of  functional  manifestation.  A  still 
more  striking  illustration  is  that  of  isomerism.  Allotropism  shows  the 
qualitative  alteration  of  the  same  element  or  atom  :  isomerism  a  quali- 
tative alteration  of  the  same  quantitative  combination  of  elements  under 
special  conditions,  the  change  of  conditions  being  so  slight  in  some  cases 
that  it  need  be  nothing  more  than  the  source  from  which  one  of  the 
elements  in  the  combination  is  obtained.  We  have  in  this  isomerism 
an  example  of  variation  from  the  general  law  that  identity  of  elements 
in  the  combination  produces  identity  of  compounds.  Experiment, 
therefore,  shows  that  both  elements  and  compounds  may  exhibit 
qualitative  modifications  in  spite  of  their  identity  in  suh^ince  when 
the  proper  causal  conditions  are  supplied.  The  same  general  fact  is 
shown  on  a  wide  scale  in  the  various  conditions  of  gaseous,  liquid 
and  solid  bodies  under  the  appropriate  circumstances. 

The  deep  significance  of  all  this  for  materialism  is  not  the  mere  fact 
of  such  changes  in  the  material  world  but  its  bearing  upon  the  question 
of  what  is  transient  and  what  is  permanent.      The  facts  prove  a  double 


MATERIALISM.  389 

conclusion.  The  first  is  the  permanence  of  substance  and  the  second 
is  the  transiency  of  certain  qualitative  manifestations  or  functional 
activities  of  either  elements  or  compounds.  What  is  the  resultant  of 
composition  is  invariably  destroyed  by  decomposition,  except  weight, 
which  is  not  a  resultant  of  composition,  and  possibly  some  ordinarily 
concealed  properties.  The  qualities  that  appear  in  composition  are 
the  resultant  of  functional  activities  elicited  by  the  conditions  that 
enable  the  composition  to  take  place,  and  disappear  with  the  dissolution 
of  the  organism  so  effected.  The  instant  bearing  of  all  this  upon  the 
"phenomena"  of  consciousness  is  apparent.  If  we  suppose  that  con- 
sciousness is  an  incident  in  the  functional  activities  of  the  bodily 
organism  which  is  a  compound  of  many  elements  we  can  see  that  all 
the  evidence  everywhere  else  is  in  favor  of  its  transiency  and  disap- 
pearance' at  the  dissolution  of  the  body.  Such  a  conception  of  the 
case  had  less  to  support  itself  in  antiquity  than  at  present.  There  was 
little  or  no  scientific  evidence  that  the  supposition  of  identity  between 
the  sensible  and  supersensible  worlds  was  a  fact  and  as  little  to  make 
clear  the  rich  capacity  of  matter  to  modify  its  qualitative  activities  in 
the  various  conditions  of  existence,  and  hence  the  ancient  philosopher 
could  not  so  easily  specify  the  evidence  for  a  "  phenomenon"  which 
he  wished  to  use  in  explanation  of  mental  functions.  But  the  moment 
that  investigation  revealed  the  enormous  extent  to  which  qualitative 
change  in  matter  is  possible  in  spite  of  its  substantial  identity,  the  fact 
opened  the  way  to  sustain  some  probability  that  this  capacity  might 
extend  to  the  explanation  of  consciousness,  and  this  independently  of 
all  questions  whether  mental  activities  were  to  be  regarded  as  modes  of 
motion  or  not.  It  is  not  necessary  to  reduce  all  the  qualities  of  matter 
to  modes  of  motion.  There  may  be  any  number  of  its  functions  that 
are  not  motion  of  any  kind.  Besides  even  if  they  must  be  so  reduced 
our  knowledge  of  what  consciousness  is  is  so  limited  that  it  might  be 
anything.  But  this  question  aside  for  the  present  the  important  thing 
to  be  emphasized  is  the  fact  that  the  evidence  of  qualitative  change  in 
identical  substance  is  now  so  extensive  and  these  changes  so  numerous 
and  representative  of  apparently  unlimited  capacities  that  a  strong  pre- 
sumption is  created  for  any  supposition  that  wishes  to  make  conscious- 
ness a  modal  function  of  material  organization  and  dissolvable  with  it. 
Ancient  materialism  had  less  to  enforce  its  truth  or  probability.  In 
fact  its  habit  was  to  ignore  the  evidential  question  in  all  but  the  most 
superficial  matters  and  so  to  indulge  hypotheses  where  they  could  be 
made  with  the  most  impunity,  and  hence  to  be  satisfied  with  the  impos- 
sibility of  denial  by  opponents.     But  this  is  no  longer  the  case  with 


39°  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  modern  application  of  the  materialistic  theory.  Its  conquests  have 
shown  the  existence  of  just  the  facts  to  suggest  capacities  in  matter  at 
least  apparently  equal  to  the  production  of  consciousness,  especially 
as  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  outside  the  alleged  "  phenomena"  of 
psychic  research  that  consciousness  has  any  connections  or  associations 
independent  of  the  bodily  organisms  with  which  we  find  it,  and  these 
are  admittedly  transient  or  "  phenomenal."  Matter  has  been  proved  to 
be  capable  of  much  that  was  never  before  suspected  as  possible,  and 
the  fact  puts  decided  limits  to  dogmatic  opposition  to  the  materialistic 
explanation  of  consciousness. 

We  have  found  that  materialism  has  finally  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing empirically  the  assumption  with  which  it  started,  and  this  was  the 
persistence  of  matter  in  all  its  changes  and  also  the  transiency  of  its 
"phenomenal"  modes,  when  anything  interfered  to  disturb  the  integ- 
rity of  its  organic  compounds.  But  there  is  one  more  step  in  its  de- 
velopment which  really  or  apparently  establishes  its  second  postulate, 
namely,  the  persistence  of  motion  or  the  quantity  of  energy  in  existence. 
This  was  effected  through  the  doctrine  of  the  "  Conservation  of 
Energy."  This  doctrine  gets  its  clear  conception  and  value  scientifi- 
cally and  philosophically  from  the  empirical  proof  which  science  has 
given  it,  but  it  was  practically  involved  in  the  assumption  that  the 
essential  basis  of  existence  must  be  eternal.  The  Greeks  said  "  being" 
was  eternal,  and  when  this  "  being"  came  to  be  definitely  interpreted 
it  turned  out  to  be  "  matter,"  though  the  predicate  of  perpetuity  had 
to  be  confined  to  its  supersensible  form.  Christian  thought  conceded 
the  principle  when  it  assumed  the  ephemeral  or  "  phenomenal "  nature 
of  "  matter"  and  affirmed  the  eternity  of  God.  All  agreed  that  some- 
thing was  permanent  and  eternal,  whatever  the  evidence  for  the  as- 
sumption. But  they  did  not  all  agree  that  motion  was  eternal,  as  we 
have  seen  in  the  Aristotelian  and  other  forms  of  philosophy,  especially 
that  of  Christianity  which  sought  to  justify  the  existence  of  all  trans- 
physical  reality  by  the  universality  of  inertia  and  the  essentially  finite 
and  temporal  character  of  motion.  The  materialists,  however,  assumed 
the  coeternity  of  motion  with  matter  and  required  only  the  initiating 
agency  of  internal  "  forces"  to  explain  the  "  phenomena"  of  change, 
which  it  confined  to  the  modification  of  the  direction  of  motion  and 
the  qualitative  modification  of  properties.  It  remained  to  discover 
facts  that  really  or  apparently  support  the  materialists'  conception  of 
the  persistence  of  motion  or  "  force,"  and  which  added  to  the  explana- 
tory power  of  the  materialistic  theory. 

It  was  Descartes  who  suggested  the  modern  conception  of  material- 


MATERIALISM.  39 l 

ism  in  its  "  mechanical "  interpretation  as  implying  the  translation  of 
motion  from  object  to  subject.  lie  effected  this  result  in  spite  of  the 
idealistic  impulse  in  his  metaphysics  on  the  spiritualistic  side.  His 
"mechanical"  philosophy  was  held,  however,  in  subordination  to  his 
spiritualistic  theory,  whether  consistently  or  not,  though  he  no  doubt 
thought  it  consistent.  But  his  physical  speculations  are  usually  ignored 
by  all  but  physicists,  because  idealism  has  taught  us  the  bad  example 
of  ignoring  all  discussions  of  physical  "  phenomena  "  in  any  other 
terms  than  "states  of  consciousness,"  and  hence  succeeds  by  various 
subreptions  in  cultivating  an  opposition  which  its  own  reduction  of 
facts  makes  impossible,  and,  as  we  shall  see  later,  falls  into  the  same 
pit  as  the  materialism  which  it  affects  to  despise.  Its  monism  prevents 
its  opposition  to  the  essential  features  of  materialism  just  as  much  as 
the  monism  of  materialism  in  its  later  development  prevents  its  opposi- 
tion to  spiritualism  or  "  idealism."  But  we  shall  not  understand  even 
the  "  idealistic"  side  of  Descartes  unless  we  conceive  it  in  its  relation 
to  the  materialistic.  His  dualism  was  not  that  of  realities  equally  coor- 
dinate with  each  other,  but  as  fundamentally  different  in  nature  while 
the  spiritual  occupied  the  priority  of  value  and  causal  initiation.  This 
position  enabled  Descartes  to  concede  one  half  the  universe  of  "  phe- 
nomenal "  reality  to  materialistic  explanation.  His  conception  of  it 
gave  a  technical  meaning  to  the  description  of  modern  materialism  as 
"  mechanical,"  and  which  went  so  far  as  to  wholly  transform  the  defi- 
nition of  it  in  the  minds  of  many  philosophers  who  forget  its  prior 
historical  lineage  in  the  notion  of  atomic  combinations.  Descartes 
made  a  technical  denial  of  the  older  atomic  doctrine  but  set  up  a  con- 
ception which  was  in  effect  a  reinstatement  of  it  with  the  notion  of  a 
vacuum  omitted.  He  accepted  the  doctrine  that  matter  was  divisible 
into  primary  unities,  but  they  were  in  contact,  so  that  motion  could  be 
transferred  from  one  to  the  other  and  actio  in  distans  was  denied. 
Accepting  either  tacitly  or  by  implication  the  traditional  conception  of 
inertia,  as  implying  that  all  motion  must  have  a  primitive  initium,  he 
derived  the  primary  motion  of  the  physical  universe  from  an  act  of 
God,  but  after  this  he  accounted  for-  the  occurrence  of  all  material 
"  phenomena  "  by  the  transmission  of  this  motion  from  one  body  to 
another,  and  chose  mechanical  impact  and  transfer  of  energy  as  his 
analogy  for  the  whole  process. 

I  shall  not  trace  the  development  of  this  idea  through  Descartes' 
successors  in  any  historical  way,  as  various  modifications  of  details 
occurred  in  men  like  Gassendi,  Hobbes  and  Huyghens,  but  shall 
only  call  attention  to  the    simple    mode  by  which  the  conception  of 


39 2  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Descartes  can  be  illustrated  as  well  as  the  process  which  he  was  con- 
sidering. For  example,  a  steam  engine  well  illustrates  this  transmis- 
sion of  motion  from  one  point  to  another  in  the  impulsion  which  its 
action  gives  to  machinery.  Whatever  origin  we  give  to  the  motion 
which  the  steam  engine  exhibits  the  motion  which  it  causes  in  what 
it  impels  is  a  transmission  or  translation  from  one  point  to  another 
through  bodies  or  matter  in  contact.  Perhaps  a  simpler  illustration 
would  be  a  series  of  billiard  balls  set  in  motion  by  the  impact  of  a  cue. 
The  motion  is  conceivably  transferred  from  the  cue  to  the  first  ball 
and  from  this  to  the  second  ball,  and  so  on.  All  complexity  of 
action  in  a  system  of  connected  machines,  consisting  of  levers,  cranks, 
pulleys,  etc.,  only  exhibits  the  variations  of  direction  in  this  trans- 
mitted motion.  This  conception  of  "  mechanical  "  action  as  the  trans- 
mission of  energy  became  the  accepted  one  in  all  fields  of  physics 
after  Descartes,  and  when  it  was  discovered  that  the  various  "  forces," 
or  energy  defined  as  the  capacity  to  do  work,  which  was  measured  in 
terms  of  motion  and  mass,  were  so  correlated  that  none  seemed  lost 
and  none  gained  in  the  process  of  translation,  when  friction  was 
allowed  for,  as  even  the  simple  experiment  with  elastic  balls  will 
show,  the  fact  was  generalized  to  express  the  persistence  of  "force" 
or  motion,  and  this  only  extended  to  motion  what  was  already  ad- 
mitted of  matter,  its  indestructibility.  Experiments  with  the  various 
"  mechanical  forces,"  such  as  heat,  electricity,  steam,  water  power, 
and  expansible  vapors,  with  the  assumed  "convertibility"  and 
"inconvertibility"  of  some  of  them,  resulted  in  the  formulation  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  "  conservation  of  energy,"  which  meant  that  in 
all  its  changes  and  modifications  the  quantity  of  "force"  or  motion 
represented  by  the  total  effects  was  neither  increased  nor  decreased. 
As  "force"  or  "energy"  was  expressed  in  MV2  it  involved  the 
idea  of  motion,  and  as  this  AfV*  never  exhibited  itself  sensibly  except 
in  terms  of  motion,  this  reality  became  the  fact  conserved.  But  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  was 
defined  as  indicating  the  quantitative  identity  of  motion  or  "force"  in 
all  its  modifications  various  circumstances  availed  to  create  the  impli- 
cation of  qualitative  identity  at  the  same  time.  This  means  that  the 
antecedent  and  consequent  conditions  of  motion  or  "force"  in  the 
process  of  transmission  or  change  were  the  same  in  kind,  though  the 
proper  intent  of  the  doctrine  was  or  must  be  to  speak  of  quantitative 
identity  in  the  various  states  involved.  The  inevitable  tendency  to  this 
conception  of  the  case  is  found  in  speaking  at  all  of  their  identity  in 
anv  sense  of  the  term.     Besides  in  the  usual  measurements  of  theoreti- 


MATERIALISM.  393 

cal  and  practical  life  we  cannot  assume  or  assert  any  quantitative 
identity  without  implying  the  qualitative  identity  in  some  respect  at 
least.  The  notion  of  equality  inevitably  insinuates  itself  into  compari- 
sons of  this  kind,  and  equality  must  imply  qualitative  resemblance 
enough  to  make  the  comparison  of  this  kind.  All  mensuration  implies 
qualitative  identity  in  some  form.  Probably  the  concrete  facts  which 
led  to  this  conception  of  the  qualitative  identity  of  the  terms  in  the 
series  of  "mechanical"  "phenomena"  were  ideas  most  naturally 
formed  of  the  process  of  transmission  of  energy  or  motion  in  the  sim- 
plest cases,  chosen  for  illustration,  and  of  which  all  complicated 
machinery  was  but  a  complex  illustration.  In  the  translation  of  mo- 
tion from  one  ball  to  another  the  theoretical  rule  is,  elasticity  being 
sufficient,  that  the  antecedent  ball  stops  and  the  consequent  ball  receives 
and  continues  the  motion  so  received,  repeating  the  process,  ceteris 
paribus,  of  the  first  ball,  if  it  comes  into  contact  with  a  third  while  it 
is  itself  in  motion.  Here,  as  the  motion  of  each  ball  is  so  identical, 
or  apparently  identical  in  kind  with  that  of  the  preceding,  incidental 
effects  like  sound,  etc.,  being  ignored,  as  in  a  complete  theory  they 
should  not  be,  we  conceive  the  effect  as  identical  in  kind  with  the 
cause,  as  qualitatively  identical  whatever  we  think  of  their  quantitative 
relations.  When  we  have  generalized  the  conception  of  conservation 
and  represent  these  simple  cases  of  its  exhibition  as  qualitatively  the 
same  as  the  more  complex  illustrations  of  the  "  phenomenon,"  we  very 
naturally  transfer  the  conception  of  the  simple  case,  presumably  repre- 
senting the  qualitative  identity  of  cause  and  effect,  to  the  more  complex 
instances  of  the  transmission  of  "  force,"  and  come  thus  to  conceive 
the  conservation  of  energy  as  necessarily  implying  the  qualitative  as 
well  as  the  quantitative  identity  of  the  cause  and  the  effect. 

Whether  this  conception  of  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  is  the  correct  one  or  not,  or  the  one  always  held  by  scientific 
men,  is  not  the  question  to  be  decided,  but  only  the  fact  that  many  men 
have  actually  discussed  the  doctrine  with  the  implications  indicated, 
even  when  they  knew  in  their  clearer  moments  that  the  true  conception 
of  it  was  very  different  from  that  which  the  language  most  naturally 
implied.  Hence  I  am  concerned  with  the  effect  of  the  assumption, 
whether  true  or  false,  of  qualitative  identity  between  cause  and  effect 
upon  the  conception  of  the  materialistic  theory,  and  with  the  various 
influences  that  tended  to  make  the  mind  conceive  and  represent  the  two 
terms  as  identical,  whatever  meaning  a  more  critical  and  cautious  state- 
ment of  the  doctrine  might  give  it.  I  have  always  felt  that  Grove's 
formulation  of  the  doctrine  as  the  correlation  of  the  physical  forces 


394  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

was  by  far  the  better  expression  for  the  doctrine,  as  being  less  calcu- 
lated to  suggest  equivocation.  It  satisfied  all  the  facts  of  harmonious 
relation  and  quantitative  considerations  rightly  considered,  and  leaves 
open  the  question  of  universal  qualitative  identity  in  the  transforma- 
tions of  energy  and  may  not  imply  that  "  transmission"  is  the  only  way 
to  conceive  the  process  of  change  in  "mechanical"  causation.  But 
"  conservation"  is  a  term  that  in  its  very  import  implies  some  sort  of 
continuity  and  identity,  so  that  cases  in  which  this  identity  may  be 
apparent  become  the  norm  by  which  cases  are  interpreted,  which,  in 
fact,  do  not  show  this  identity  of  kind,  but  which  at  the  same  time 
have  the  appropriate  ' '  correlation  "  of  cause  and  effect  to  suggest  that 
energy  is  neither  increased  nor  decreased  in  the  process  of  change, 
though  the  change  may  not  involve  "transmission"  or  translation  at 
all.  But  whatever  may  be  the  best  term  to  describe  the  doctrine  ac- 
cepted as  the  "  conservation  of  energy,"  it  is  certain  that  this  formula- 
tion of  it  tends  to  encourage  the  conception  of  identity  between  cause 
and  effect.  The  simplest  illustration  of  it  is  evidence  of  this.  In  the 
case  of  the  billiard  balls  the  cessation  of  motion  in  the  first,  as  the 
theory  must  represent  it,  and  the  appearance  of  this  motion  in  the 
others,  representing  perfect  continuity  in  time  and  mechanical  impact, 
is  explained  by  the  mere  taking  up  by  one  ball  of  the  antecedent  motion 
imparted  to  it  by  the  one  that  has  lost  its  motion.  If  the  uniform  effect 
had  been  the  continuance  of  the  motion  in  the  antecedent  and  the  rise 
of  motion  in  the  consequent  instances,  it  is  possible  that  the  conception 
of  the  problem  of  mechanics  would  have  been  less  convincing  of  the 
identity  between  the  two  terms.  But  the  cessation  of  the  motion  in  the 
antecedent  and  its  genesis  in  the  consequent  suggests  that  the  only 
way  to  escape  an  anomalous  situation,  and  measurement  confirms  it,  is 
to  conceive  the  motion  as  simply  transferred  and  identical  in  kind  with 
that  which  was  initial  in  the  case.  This  is  apparent  in  the  simple 
illustration  of  the  balls.  The  identity  of  the  effect  in  kind  with  the 
cause  or  antecedent  motion  and  the  fact  that  the  two  stages  of  it  are 
measurably  the  same  in  quantity,  one  ceasing  and  the  other  beginning, 
carries  with  it  a  conception  of  qualitative  identity  throughout  which 
cannot  easily  be  resisted.  In  fact  the  difference  between  the  various 
moments  of  the  transmission  are  less  apparent,  if  observable  at  all, 
than  the  resemblances,  and  we  neglect  them  entirely  in  our  apprecia- 
tion of  the  identities,  and  as  the  principle  of  identity  is  the  one  by 
which  we  render  the  universe  an  intelligible  cosmos  for  our  minds, 
we  most  naturally  put  the  ictus  of  thought  and  explanation  on  these 
identities  and  our  estimate  and   conception  of  the  cause  and  effect  in 


MATERIALISM.  395 

such  cases  as  the  simplest  instances  of  the  transmission  of  motion  take 
on  the  coloring  of  the  chief  factor  in  them,  namely,  the  identity  in 
kind.  Now  when  we  experiment  with  the  other  "mechanical  forces," 
such  as  heat  and  electricity,  we  find  a  definite  correlation  between 
them  which  leads  to  the  conception  that  they  are  related  in  the  same 
way.  Thus  they  show  unmistakable  evidence  of  some  sort  of  quanti- 
tative relations,  involving  the  alternative  and  convertible  disappearance 
and  reappearance  of  antecedent  or  consequent,  as  the  "  conversion  of 
heat  into  electricity  and  again  of  electricity  back  into  heat,"  and  con- 
sequently appear  to  indicate  their  identity  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
energy  is  neither  created  nor  destroyed  by  the  process  of  change. 
The  effect  of  this  is  to  place  the  two  sets  of  "phenomena"  in  the 
same  class  and  to  describe  them  by  the  same  law  which  is  said  to  be 
the  "conservation  of  energy"  and  to  represent  them  as  involving  their 
"  mechanical  equivalence,"  their  "  convertibility,"  and  in  some  cases 
their  "  interconvertibility."  In  this  language  cause  and  effect  are  de- 
scribed as  equal  to  each  other  and  this  implies  their  qualitative  identity, 
even  though  the  facts  and  our  intentions  represent  them  as  only  quan- 
titatively related.  The  whole  doctrine,  in  spite  of  precautions  and 
occasional  limitations  suggested  by  various  controversies,  takes  the 
form  of  a  qualitative  identity  between  the  several  stages  of  "  phenom- 
enal "  transformations  owing  to  the  original  simple  conception  which 
determined  the  generalization. 

The  main  direct  consequence  of  this  result  is  in  the  application  of 
the  same  principle  to  motion  that  had  been  applied  by  the  earlier 
materalism  to  matter,  namely,  its  persistence  in  change.  The  inde- 
structibility of  matter  had  been  experimentally  proved,  justifying  the 
assumption  in  antiquity  of  identity  between  the  sensible  and  supersensi- 
ble worlds  in  respect  to  substance,  and  now  experiment  has  equally 
appeared  to  establish  that  identity  of  motion  in  all  its  transformations 
or  changes.  In  other  words,  the  law  of  identity  now  applies  to  both 
matter  and  motion.  Consequently,  considering  the  fact  regressively 
in  time,  as  in  the  case  of  matter,  it  implies  that  motion  no  more  had 
an  origin  in  time  than  matter,  and  the  Aristotelian  and  Christian  doc- 
trines, implying  an  original  initium  for  all  motion,  seems  to  have  met 
with  a  refutation.  Hence  with  the  persistence  of  both  matter  and 
motion  as  an  established  fact,  as  a  truth  that  is  no  longer  a  mere  as- 
sumption or  conjecture  which  obtained  its  plausibility  or  acceptance 
on  the  ground  that  it  could  not  be  denied,  we  not  only  have  the  old 
materialistic  preconceptions  confirmed  and  the  anti-materialistic  posi- 
tion  disabled,  but  there   is  also   nothing  left  for  explanation  except 


39^  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

changes  in  the  direction  of  motion  and  the  qualitative  modifications  of 
substance  that  are  not  reducible  to  motion  at  all.  The  latter  of  these 
are  presumably  the  consequence  of  internal  "  forces,"  and  the  former 
of  conflicting  motions  which  might  be  as  original  as  the  qualitative 
differences  of  the  atoms.  There  can  certainly  be  no  more  difficulty  in 
assuming  an  eternal  variation  in  kind  of  motion  than  the  variation  in 
kind  of  the  atoms,  especially  as  we  have  not  the  reason  to  suppose  any 
such  perpetuum  mobile  to  cause  only  the  downward  motion  of  the 
atoms  with  the  necessity  of  endowing  them  with  free  will  to  produce 
lateral  motion.  With  such  conceptions,  supported  by  actual  experi- 
ment, the  materialistic  theory  becomes  apparently  irrefragible.  In  do- 
ing so  also,  it  has  made  so  extensive  a  use  of  the  principle  of  identity, 
or  material  causation,  as  to  appear  not  to  need  any  other  for  the  explana- 
tion of  "  phenomena  "  of  any  kind,  and  wherever  it  interprets  qualita- 
tive differences  as  modes  of  motion,  its  principle  of  identity  apparently 
suffices  to  cover  the  whole  field  and  it  remains  master. 

The  indirect  consequence  of  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  or  material  causation,  is  its  application  to  the  "phenomena" 
of  consciousness.  The  readiness  with  which  this  application  could  be 
made  and  was  made  was  determined  by  the  universality  of  the  belief 
that  there  was  a  causal  nexus  between  mental  and  physical  "phenom- 
ena." That  there  had  to  be  such  a  nexus  assumed  was  an  unquestion- 
able necessity  in  the  theistic  theory  of  creation  and  the  primary  insti- 
gation of  motion.  Spiritualism,  in  its  acceptance  of  the  theistic  origin 
of  things,  obtained  its  excuse  for  existence  as  a  theory  from  the 
assumption  of  a  causal  influence  both  in  the  creation  of  matter  and  in 
the  collocation  of  it  by  means  of  the  initiation  of  motion,  so  that  in  one 
direction  at  least  the  possible  influence  of  mind  on  matter  had  to  be  a 
necessary  postulate.  On  the  other  hand,  the  theory  of  "  knowledge  " 
had  assumed  or  asserted  the  complementary  nexus  between  mind  and 
matter  as  necessary  to  the  production  of  consciousness ;  that  is,  the 
causal  action  of  matter  upon  the  mind  in  instigating  the  occurrence  of 
mental  states.  Moreover,  common  observation  also  presented  the  al- 
ternative coexistence  and  sequence  of  mental  and  physical  "phenom- 
ena," physical  events  now  being  the  antecedent  of  the  mental,  as  in 
sensation  and  "knowledge"  of  the  external  world,  and  again,  mental 
"  phenomena  "  being  the  antecedent  of  the  physical,  as  in  conscious 
volition  initiating  physical  events.  In  other  words,  mental  and  phys- 
ical ' '  phenomena "  represent  a  concurrent  and  recurrent  series  of 
events  with  a  relative  import  for  cause  and  effect  exactly  like  that  evi- 
dentially in  the  physical  series  alone,  where,  ceteris  paribus,  an  ante- 


MATERIALISM.  397 

cedent  is  a  cause  in  relation  to  the  consequent,  and  may  be  an  effect  in 
relation  to  a  prior  antecedent,  or  the  effect  a  cause  in  relation  to  a  pos- 
terior consequent.  This  is  only  to  say  that  the  relation  between  the 
mental  and  physical  is  most  naturally  interpreted  causally,  just  as  the 
relation  between  the  members  of  the  physical  series  is  interpreted. 
Now  as  this  causal  relation  between  the  mental  and  physical  has  been 
universally  accepted,  that  is,  by  both  schools  of  thought,  with  perhaps 
only  individual  exceptions,  and  as  the  causal  nexus  between  the  terms 
of  the  physical  series  has  been  presumably  proved  to  be  "  material," 
that  is,  representing  the  principle  of  identity,  it  was  only  natural  and 
scientific  to  suppose  that  the  same  interpretation  should  be  put  upon 
the  nexus  between  the  mental  and  physical ;  that  the  mental  is  only  a 
conversion  or  transmission  of  the  physical  into  it  and  so  identical  with 
it  in  kind.  It  matters  not  whether  such  a  result  has  been  proved  or 
not.  All  that  I  am  asserting  is  that,  with  the  causal  nexus  between 
mental  and  physical  generally  accepted,  and  the  acceptance  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy  as  the  norm  of  physical  causation  involving  the 
identity  of  antecedent  and  consequent  in  the  physical  series,  the  proper 
procedure  is  to  extend  this  latter  conclusion,  at  least  as  a  most  probable 
hypothesis,  to  cover  the  relation  between  the  mental  and  physical. 
The  necessary  unity  of  explanation  requires  this,  if  the  materialistic 
theory  is  supposed  to  explain  anything  at  all,  and  finds  no  problems  in 
the  material  world  not  solved  by  this  application  of  material  causation. 
In  this  application  of  the  principle  of  identity  to  the  relation  between 
the  mental  and  physical,  materialism  thus  obtains  a  perfect  unity 
throughout  the  "  phenomena"  of  existence,  and  consciousness  is  "  re- 
duced "  to  a  "  mode  of  motion,"  which  had  to  be  the  original  hypoth- 
esis of  materialism,  but  which  now  seems  to  be  verified  by  the  doctrine 
of  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  accepted  causal  relation  be- 
tween the  mental  and  the  physical.  Materialism  thus  becomes  the 
one  simple  theory  which  is  apparently  capable  of  explaining  all 
"phenomena"  whatever,  and  the  principle  of  material  causation  or 
identity  the  agency  to  interpret  the  nature  of  all  events  whatsoever. 

This  outcome  of  the  materialistic  doctrine  since  Descartes  has 
modified  the  conception  of  materialism  which  once  prevailed.  The 
idea  of  atomic  composition  still  remains  as  a  fundamental  tenet  in  it, 
but  the  "mechanical"  theory  of  nature,  as  based  upon  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  and  the  conceptions  that  have  determined  our  way  of 
representing  it,  has  resulted  in  the  interpretation  of  materialism  as  con- 
ceptually convertible  with  the  identity  of  mental  and  physical  "phe- 
nomena," in  addition  to  the  idea  of  atomic  composition.     But  the  latter 


39S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

conception  has  retreated  into  the  background  as  a  means  for  explaining 
mental  events,  since  the  assumption  of  an  absolutely  qualitative  differ- 
ence between  mental  and  physical,  which  was  supposably  explicable 
as  a  resultant  of  composition,  an  internal  "  force  "  analogous  to  chemi- 
cal affinity,  is  necessarily  abandoned  by  the  new  materialism  and  con- 
sciousness becomes  a  moment  in  the  transmission  of  motion.  The  old 
idea  that  the  nexus  between  the  mental  and  physical  was  only  that  of 
efficient  causation  was  exchanged  for  that  of  material  causation,  and 
the  "  mechanical "  philosophy,  from  being  defined  and  conceived  in 
terms  of  a  "  mechanical "  prius,  or  efficient  cause,  as  "mechanical" 
causation  originally  meant,  became  convertible  with  the  idea  of 
equivalence  between  cause  and  effect  and  hence  implied  identity. 
This  idea  of  identity  is  clearly  indicated  in  such  phrases  as  "the  me- 
chanical equivalent  of  heat,"  etc.,  even  though  mental  reservations  are 
made  for  a  different  interpretation  of  the  facts  and  for  a  limitation  of 
the  doctrine  of  conservation  of  energy  to  quantitative  and  excluding 
qualitative  problems.  But  its  conception  of  material  causation  in  its 
assertion  or  assumption  of  the  identity  of  matter  and  motion  in  all 
their  real  or  apparent  changes  and  transformations  carried  with  it  the 
implication  that  materialism  was  to  be  defined  by  this  conception,  and 
the  older  doctrine  based  upon  the  admission  of  priority  for  efficient 
causality  in  the  problem  was  exchanged  for  the  priority  of  material 
causality  as  the  interpreting  instrument  in  the  explanation  of  "phe- 
nomena." The  consequence  was  that  the  exposition  and  criticism  of 
modern  materialism  has  primarily  to  consider  this  reduction  of  the 
theory  to  the  application  of  the  principle  of  material  causation  to  all 
events. 

The  modern  attack  upon  this  materialism,  or  "  mechanical  "  phi- 
losophy as  it  is  called,  is  based  upon  the  assumption  that  the  doctrine 
is  definable,  as  indicated,  by  the  affirmation  of  the  identity  or  converti- 
bility of  mental  and  physical  "  phenomena."  The  doctrine  that  has 
been  brought  forward  to  controvert  it  has  been  called  Parallelism.  It 
originates  in  the  conception  with  which  philosophy  has  been  inocu- 
lated by  the  dualism  of  Descartes  in  connection  with  the  monism  of 
Leibnitz,  and  which  does  not  disappear  even  after  men  have  ad- 
opted monism  !  Descartes  insisted  upon  the  radical  difference  between 
mental  and  physical  "  phenomena"  and  the  impossibility  of  "  mechan- 
ical "  or  material  causation  between  them,  although  he  admitted  a  re- 
lation of  efficient  causation.  The  idea  survived  in  the  "  phenomenal" 
dualism  or  difference  between  thought  and  extension  in  the  philosophy 
of  Spinoza  in  which  consciousness  and  motion  or  all  "phenomena" 


MATERIALISM.  399 

in  extension  remained  inconvertible  with  each  other,  though  they  were 
attributes  of  the  same  substance,  a  position  at  least  very  near  the  doc- 
trine of  materialism,  though  not  assuming  an  atomic  basis.  In  fact 
Spinoza  conceived  substance  as  material  in  all  the  essential  implications 
involved  in  the  interpretation  of  "  nature"  and  accepted  the  material- 
istic construction  of  "  phenomena  "  in  a  monistic  form  with  a  provision 
for  a  spiritualistic  aspect  in  one  of  its  modes  parallel  with  extension, 
making  his  system  as  consistent  with  one  system  as  the  other,  a 
"double-faced  unity,"  and  preparing  the  way  for  the  conception  of  the 
Leibnitzian  monads  which  united  in  themselves  in  various  degrees  the 
attributes  of  matter  and  mind.  But  Leibnitz  worked  out  the  concep- 
tion of  "parallelism"  into  its  most  consistent  form  in  the  attempt  to 
displace  the  "mechanical"  interpretation  of  mental  "phenomena." 
Accepting  the  dictum  of  Descartes  at  this  point,  namely,  that  a  material 
causal  nexus  between  mind  and  matter  did  not  exist,  he  shut  his  monads 
up  from  all  external  influence  and  from  all  influence  upon  the  external 
world  in  terms  of  the  "  mechanical  "  transmission  of  energy  or  motion 
from  one  monad  to  the  other.  The  unity,  coincidence,  and  actual 
relation  or  connective  appearance  of  interaction  was  explained  by  his 
doctrine  of  "occasional"  causes,  or  p  reestablished  harmony,  an  ex- 
pression which  was  perhaps  an  unfortunate  one  for  the  correct  under- 
standing of  his  real  conception  and  intentions.  But  apart  from 
either  the  truth  or  falsity  of  his  conception,  it  asserted  what  has  been 
called  a  "parallelism"  between  internal  and  external  action  of  all 
kinds.  This  "  parallelism"  meant  that  there  was  no  real  transmission 
or  translation  of  motion  from  one  thing  to  another  and  that  when  two 
coexistent  or  sequent  events  took  place  under  the  appearance  of  a 
material  causal  nexus  all  that  could  be  said  of  them  was  that  they  had 
a  "parallel"  or  coincidental  origin  in  two  different  centers  of  refer- 
ence. This  was  the  most  radical  position  possible  against  the  existing 
conception  of  materialism.  It  was  as  total  a  denial  of  material  causa- 
tion between  different  realities  as  materialism  was  an  affirmation  of  it. 
The  materialist  explained  all  "  phenomena"  of  causation  by  "  mate- 
rial "  causation  alone.  Leibnitz  denied  in  toto  the  existence  of  any 
such  causation,  and  whether  true  or  false  in  his  view  threw  down  the 
gauntlet  to  materialism  in  the  boldest  way  and  challenged  the  existence 
of  its  conceptions  even  in  the  material  world.  Applied  to  the  relation 
between  the  mental  and  physical  it  meant  that  they  were  not  converti- 
ble; that  there  was  no  injluxus  physicus  into  the  mental  and  no 
injluxus  mentalis  into  the  physical  world.  Now  as  I  have  said, 
Leibnitz   intended  this  position  to  be  a  refutation  of  the  prevailing 


4©0  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

materialism  or  ' '  mechanical "  philosophy  of  his  time  with  which  he  was 
confronted.  But  neither  he  nor  Descartes  knew  anything  of  the  ex- 
perimental facts  which,  since  their  time,  have  proved  the  quantitative 
relations  and  presumably  the  qualitative  identity  between  cause  and 
effect  in  the  physical  world,  though  it  is  possible  that  Leibnitz  would 
adapt  his  views  to  present  facts.  They  were  contending  on  a  priori 
grounds  against  an  a  priori  assumption  and  were  perhaps  equally 
justified  with  their  opponents  in  the  assumption  of  intransmissibility  of 
motion  between  mind  and  matter.  But,  however  this  may  be,  the 
proof  that  the  quantity  of  energy  remains  the  same  in  all  physical 
changes  and  modifications  of  motion,  and  the  assumption  or  proof  that 
its  quality  is  also  the  same,  have  really  or  apparently  confirmed  the 
materialistic  theory  within  the  domain  of  physics  at  large  and  leaves  to 
the  parallelist  and  anti-materialist  the  necessity  of  denying  its  applica- 
tion to  the  relation  between  matter  and  mind,  whatever  may  be  true  of 
matter  alone,  thus  resuming  the  position  of  Descartes  in  the  case. 
But  unless  the  opponent  of  materialism  wishes  to  insist  upon  Cartesian 
dualism,  his  monism  and  the  acceptance  of  a  causal  nexus  between 
mental  and  physical  "  phenomena,"  whether  progressively  or  retro- 
gressively  conceived,  will  suggest  the  possibility  that  the  law  of 
"  mechanical"  causality  will  apply  to  the  relation  between  matter  and 
mind  quite  as  well  as  between  the  separate  terms  in  either  of  the  series 
alone.  As  the  "  phenomenal"  order  of  events  in  the  physical  series 
and  in  the  mental  and  physical  series  together  is  the  same,  the  evidential 
situation  for  a  causal  nexus  of  some  kind  is  as  apparent  in  one  case  as 
the  other  and  hence  the  opponent  of  materialism  must  either  deny  a 
causal  relation  in  both  and  resort  to  a  doctrine  of  preestablished  har- 
mony, which  philosophy  has  agreed  to  reject,  or  accept  the  plausibility 
of  the  extension  of  the  material  causality  to  the  relation  between  the 
mental  and  physical  after  it  is  admitted  in  the  physical  series,  unless 
he  is  prepared  for  an  analysis  of  the  causality  problem  which  will  meet 
the  conditions  of  the  case.  This  last  course  would  require  a  distinc- 
tion of  at  least  two  kinds  of  causes  in  the  general  problem  of  explana- 
tion. 

The  course  suggested  is  probably  the  real  meaning  and  intention  of 
the  parallelist  when  denying  the  causal  relation  between  mental  and 
physical  "  phenomena,"  though  he  too  frequently  discusses  the  prob- 
lem in  a  way  to  indicate  that  he  has  efficient  causality  in  mind  as  well 
as  material  when  denying  the  relation  which  has  as  much  empirical 
evidence  in  the  mental  and  physical  series  together  as  in  the  physical 
alone,  where  the  causal  nexus  is  admitted  by  the  parallelist  in  the  ma- 


MA  TERIALISM.  4° l 

terial  sense,  as  perhaps  Leibnitz  would  not  have  done.  If  then,  instead 
of  carrying  on  the  controversy  in  terms  that  apparently  deny  all "  causal " 
relation  whatever  between  mental  and  physical  events,  we  insist  upon  the 
distinction  between  efficient  and  material  causes,  between  what  may  be 
called  "  occasional"  and  constitutive  causes,  we  may  have  a  legitimate 
resource,  speculatively  at  least,  for  combatting  the  much  dreaded  ma- 
terialism. This  distinction  would  enable  us  to  deny  the  application  of 
the  principle  of  identity  and  material  causation  to  the  relation  between 
the  two  types  of  "  phenomena,"  as  the  parallelist  really  does,  while 
we  affirm  a  "  causal  "  relation  of  genesis  or  instigation,  which  will 
satisfy  the  natural  conclusion  drawn  from  their  coexistence  and  sequence, 
as  this  relation  is  the  evidential  characteristic  in  the  physical  series  of 
a  "causal"  nexus  of  some  kind.  The  distinction  can  accept  the 
natural  judgment  of  a  qualitative  difference  between  mental  and  phys- 
ical, and  even  between  the  various  terms  of  a  physical  series,  while  it 
maintains  that  the  problem  and  conclusion  represented  in  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  is  merely  quantitative  and  not  qualitative,  so  that  ma- 
terial causality  is  excluded  from  the  nexus  between  the  mental  and  the 
physical  while  the  nexus  of  efficient  causation  may  remain  intact.  It 
would  then  be  in  a  position  to  impose  a  dilemma  upon  materialism. 
Dropping  for  the  present  the  question  whether  the  conservation  of 
energy  is  merely  quantitative  and  not  qualitative,  the  point  to  be  noted 
is  that  the  distinction  between  the  problems  of  efficient  and  those  of 
material  causes  is  adapted  to  the  denial  of  a  material  identity  of  mental 
and  physical  while  it  concedes  an  efficient  causal  nexus  between  them 
as  an  "occasioning"  influence  in  the  genesis  of  one  or  the  other 
"  phenomenon,"  as  the  case  may  require.  This  will  be  equal  to  the 
demand  that  materialism  either  change  its  definition  and  conception  of 
its  problem  as  essentially  occupied  with  the  principle  of  identity  and 
material  causation  between  "  phenomena,"  especially  in  the  connection 
between  matter  and  mind,  or  obtain  its  evidence  for  this  material  nexus 
in  mental  "  phenomena  "  and  physical  together  in  some  other  fact  than 
the  relation  of  coexistence  or  sequence,  since  this  can  be  presumably 
explained  as  an  occurrence  by  efficient  or  "occasional"  causes  without 
admitting  a  material  nexus  at  all.  The  advantage  which  the  materialist 
has  had  in  the  argument  arises  from  the  general  admission  of  a  causal 
nexus  between  mental  and  physical  "  phenomena  "  without  any  defini- 
tion of  its  limitations  and  meaning  and  the  fact  that  parallelism  has 
had  no  special  recognition  until  philosophy  was  confronted  with  the 
materialistic  application  of  the  principle  of  identity  or  material  causes 
in  the  relations  between  mind  and  matter.  His  contention  was  good 
26 


402  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

for  ad  hominem  purposes  as  long  as  the  distinction  between  efficient 
and  material  causes  was  not  known  or  explicitly  urged  as  an  argument 
against  him,  so  that  he  could  consistently  and  effectively  maintain  that 
the  explanation  was  valid  for  the  connection  between  mind  and  matter 
wherever  an  undistinguished  causality  was  admitted  in  the  case.  But 
once  insist  upon  the  distinction  mentioned  and  the  ad  hominem  argu- 
ment would  not  be  valid,  and  ad  rem  facts  would  have  to  be  produced 
to  show  that  material  causality  applied  to  the  case  as  well  as  efficient 
or  "occasional"  causes.  The  anti-materialist  would  be  invulnerable 
with  his  distinction  until  the  distinction  itself  was  either  disproved  in 
general  or  shown  to  be  indifferent  to  the  materialist's  problem. 

But  the  strange  part  of  the  controversy  at  this  point  is  that  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  parallelist  and  materialist  alike  was  an  abandonment  of 
the  position  which  each  should  have  taken.  If  the  materialist  had 
accepted  the  conclusion  of  the  spiritualist,  as  he  should  have  done,  and 
if  the  spiritualist  had  accepted  the  materialist's  theory  of  conservation, 
both  would  have  come  to  an  agreement  and  left  nothing  but  a  differ- 
ence of  terms  to  distinguish  between  their  views.  The  spiritualist 
ought  to  have  seen  that  his  argument  against  materialism,  as  a  denial 
of  the  persistence  of  consciousness,  depended  for  its  effectiveness  upon 
the  acceptance  of  the  materialist's  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  and  that  the  materialist  was  wholly  inconsequent  when  he 
insisted  upon  the  integrity  of  his  traditional  theory  after  assuming  the 
identity  of  the  mental  and  physical,  or  a  material  causal  nexus  between 
them.  If  the  physical  is  convertible  with  the  mental,  as  this  material 
causal  nexus  assumes,  then  motion  and  consciousness  are  identical,  and 
the  persistence  of  the  one  implies  the  equal  persistence  of  the  other. 
The  eternity  of  matter  and  motion  must  imply  the  eternity  of  con- 
sciousness because  there  can  be  no  distinction,  by  hypothesis,  between 
it  and  motion.  We  cannot  reduce  them  to  identity  without  admitting 
the  force  of  what  is  meant  by  "  consciousness  "  as  well  as  "  motion." 
What  the  materialist  thought  he  could  do  with  impunity  was  to  iden- 
tify the  two  things  and  deny  the  previous  implications  of  "  conscious- 
ness "  altogether,  or  affirm  their  identity  by  assuming  the  falsity  of 
their  difference  and  yet  retain  the  implications  of  universalizing  "  mo- 
tion "  without  recognizing  "  consciousness  "  at  all !  But  he  cannot  do 
this  on  any  theory  of  material  causation  alone.  He  must  accept 
' '  consciousness  "  in  the  system  with  all  that  it  means  and  consider  that 
"  motion"  abstracted  from  "  consciousness  "  no  more  exists  independ- 
ently than  "consciousness"  without  "motion."  The  materialist 
ought  to  have  seen  that  his  application  of  the  conservation  had  in- 


MA  TERIA  LISM.  403 

volved  a  total  abandonment  of  the  position  for  which  his  theory  had 
traditionally  stood.  The  anti-materialist  should  have  taken  advantage 
of  the  ad  hominem  argument,  as  just  shown,  and  as  absolutely  invul- 
nerable without  a  reconstruction  of  the  problem  on  his  own  terms,  and 
not  have  placed  himself  on  the  defensive  by  advocating  the  paradoxical 
theory  of  parallelism,  which  can  be  accepted  apparently  as  rational 
only  on  the  condition  that  it  is  convertible  with  the  distinction  between 
efficient  and  material  causes.  By  insisting  upon  the  logical  conse- 
quences of  the  materialist's  own  theory  of  causation  the  spiritualist 
could  have  forced  the  materialist  either  to  accept  the  permanence  and 
non-phenomenal  nature  of  consciousness,  that  is,  the  immortality  of 
.  the  "soul "  on  a  physical  basis,  which  it  had  been  the  purpose  of  that 
doctrine  all  along  to  deny,  or  to  modify  the  doctrine  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  and  to  concede  that  there  are  qualitative  problems  of 
causality  which  quantitative  methods  do  not  decide ;  that  qualitative 
changes  are  not  accounted  for  by  material  causation  with  its  regulating 
principle  of  identity,  and  that  "  mechanical  "  principles,  assuming  this 
identity,  cannot  explain  or  make  intelligible  more  than  one  half  the 
universe  of  science  and  philosophy.  The  materialist  is  clearly  in  a 
fatal  dilemma  here.  He  must  either  reconstruct  his  method  or  concede 
the  limitations  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  if  he  is  to  insist  any 
longer  on  the  denial  of  immortality,  and  on  any  terms  he  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  spiritualist  who  accepts  the  conservation  of  energy,  and 
such  mercy  as  he  may  display  will  depend  upon  the  assurance  that  he 
can  hold  the  materialist  to  the  conclusions  which  he  has  drawn  from 
his  observations  and  experiments  without  retracing  his  steps  to  the  dis- 
tinction between  efficient  and  material  causes. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  materialist  had  departed  from  the 
original  conception  of  his  theory  in  discrediting  the  permanence  of 
consciousness  after  identifying  it  with  motion  and  then  declaring  this 
to  have  been  proved  to  be  eternal  by  experimentation,  and  retained 
nothing  but  the  word  "materialism"  for  his  position,  relying  upon 
association  and  the  ignorance  of  the  student  to  accept  the  inconsequent 
conclusion  drawn  from  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  spiritualist  or  anti- 
materialist  took  up  the  old  assumptions  of  the  materialist  as  to  the 
distinction  between  efficient  and  material  causes  and  tried  to  force  a 
conclusion  the  opposite  of  what  actually  may  follow  from  it.  Instead 
of  imposing  the  above  mentioned  dilemma  upon  his  opponent  he  ac- 
cepted the  older  position  of  materialism  with  a  denial  of  its  necessary 
consequence !  He  chose  for  his  weapon  of  offense  and  refutation  the 
very  fact  that  made  possible  the  purely  "  phenomenal"  nature  of  con- 


404  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sciousness  and  took  to  fighting  against  the  doctrine  which  proved  his 
own  contentions  !  This  is  truly  a  humorous  situation.  Both  parties 
performed  the  impossible  feat  for  which  Hegel  has  been  so  roundly 
abused,  namely,  that  of  actually  holding  that  the  truth  is  the  unity  and 
identity  of  contradictories,  for  while  the  materialist  was  bent  on  deny- 
ing the  permanence  of  consciousness  his  doctrine  affirmed  it,  and  the 
spiritualist,  while  he  was  bent  on  denying  that  consciousness  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  organism,  he  placed  his  argument  on  a  position  which 
affirmed  it,  or  made  that  affirmation  possible.  Each  party,  in  his  haste 
and  zeal  to  refute  the  other,  assuming  that  he  must  not  admit  the  major 
premises  of  his  opponent,  adopted  conceptions  which  should  have  been 
the  premises  and  had  been  the  original  premises  of  his  antagonist  and 
then  argued  against  doctrines  which  he  should  have  accepted  on  his 
own  proper  premises  !  Mutual  absorption  is  not  always  the  result  of 
philosophic  controversies,  but  this  one  reminds  us  of  the  Kilkenny 
cats. 

There  is  another  inconsequence  which  the  materialist  has  been  guilty 
of  and  which  must  be  noticed.  I  have  called  attention  to  his  original 
extension  of  the  term  "  matter"  to  cover  the  supersensible  as  well  as 
the  sensible  world  of  reality  and  shown  that  it  might  have  been  ques- 
tioned until  the  scientific  proof  of  the  indestructibility  of  "matter" 
justified  this  extension.  But  this  was  in  dealing  with  the  problem 
involved  in  distinctions  between  sensible  and  supersensible  facts.  The 
inconsequence  to  be  noticed  cannot  plead  in  its  defence  any  such  dis- 
tinction. It  concerns  the  extension  of  the  term  ' '  matter  "  in  the  same 
world,  whether  sensible  or  supersensible  it  matters  not,  and  where  the 
qualities  are  not  present  to  give  it  its  proper  connotation.  This  exten- 
sion is  shown  in  the  modern  speculations  about  the  nature  of  "  matter." 
Various  facts  and  intellectual  tendencies,  one  of  the  latter  being  per- 
haps the  same  instinct  that  prompted  theistic  speculation  to  assume  the 
created  nature  of  "  matter,"  namely  to  ask  the  cause  of  every  possible 
reality,  have  induced  scientific  men  to  explain  how  matter  may  have 
come  into  existence.  Granting  the  assumption  that  it  was  or  might  be 
a  dependent  reality,  instead  of  supposing  it  the  creation  of  intelligence, 
the  scientific  man,  either  from  motives  of  evolution  or  from  the  desire 
to  obtain  some  ultimate  monistic  reality,  has  explained  "matter"  to 
have  been  formed  from  "  vortex  atoms  of  ether."  Now  the  ether  had 
been  defined  by  qualities  which  are  the  negation  of  everything  by 
which  "matter"  is  known  to  be  "matter,"  and  this  reduction  of 
material  substance  to  a  modification  of  ether  which  is  not  "  matter"  at 
all,  is  a  virtual  admission  that  the  ultimate  reality  is  immaterial.     But 


MATERIALISM.  405 

if  you  ask  these  same  scientists  what  "  ether  "  is  they  will  tell  you  that 
it  is  a  "  form  of  matter  "  !  This  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  We  can- 
not reduce  matter  to  a  creation  or  evolution  from  the  immaterial  and 
yet  define  the  ultimate  reality  as  "material"  without  forfeiting  the 
right  to  distinguish  against  the  anti-materialistic  point  of  view,  as  the 
generalization  of  the  term  "  matter"  in  this  extension  of  it  covers  both 
the  positive  and  negative  qualities  of  the  old  conception !  Another 
union  of  contradictories !  Reasoning  is  impossible  on  any  side  of  any 
question  if  this  procedure  is  permitted  to  go  on  with  impunity.  I  do 
not  deny  that  '*  matter"  may  be  formed  from  "  vortex  atoms  of  ether," 
but  this  cannot  be  true  at  the  same  time  that  "  ether"  is  to  be  regarded 
asa"  form  of  matter."  One  or  the  other  alternative  will  have  to  be 
sacrificed,  if  the  materialistic  hypothesis  is  to  have  any  logical  fulcrum 
against  spiritualism.  If  the  distinction  made  in  the  case  and  the  exten- 
sion of  the  meaning  of  the  term  "  matter  "  involved  that  between  a  sen- 
sible and  supersensible  world  this  contention  just  put  forward  would  not 
hold  true.  The  alternatives  would  not  be  so  clear.  But  the  extension 
covers  facts  of  distinction  and  opposition  in  the  same  world,  the  super- 
sensible and  all  rational  procedure  requires  some  respect  for  distinc- 
tions of  fact  when  giving  names  to  the  results.  If  we  insist  upon 
generalizing  a  concept  to  cover  such  distinct  objects  as  the  present 
qualities  of  matter  and  the  negation  of  them  we  must  not  carry  with  it 
either  the  conception  or  implications  of  the  older  use  of  the  term. 
This  duty,  however,  is  not  so  often  observed  as  it  should  be.  The 
interests  of  controversy  induce  us  to  evade  it. 

The  defence  of  the  materialist  against  both  of  these  inconsequences 
above  should  have  been  the  consistent  limitation  of  the  term  "  matter," 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  frank  abandonment  of  material  causation  as 
the  only  method  of  explaining  the  origin  and  nature  of  "  phenomena," 
and  to  have  cultivated  the  advantage  which  he  possessed  in  the  hypoth- 
esis of  internal  causes  or  "  forces"  to  account  for  qualitative  changes 
and  differences.  The  fundamental  error  of  the  materialist  was  his 
abandonment  and  evasion  of  the  category  of  difference,  if  I  may  adopt 
a  remark  of  Sterling,  and  in  using  only  the  category  of  identity,  where 
the  other  is  quite  as  evident  a  fact  in  "  phenomena"  as  identity  and 
already  admitted  in  the  non-phenomenal  world  of  atoms  which  were  not 
all  qualitatively  alike.  If  the  materialist  would  only  remain  by  the  dis- 
tinction between  efficient  and  material  causation  he  could  treat  all  dif- 
ferences, variations  from  the  "  uniformity  of  nature,"  or  qualitative 
changes  attached  to  quantitative  identity,  as  "  epiphenomena  "  or  inci- 
dental effects  of  causes  that  guarantee  no  necessary  permanence  for 


406  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

their  effects,  which  on  that  account  may  be  transient  and  "phenom- 
enal." That  is  to  say,  whatever  account  we  may  or  may  not  be  able  to 
give  of  "  efficient  "  causes,  the  materialist  should  have  recognized  from 
the  very  conception  of  differences  between  causes  and  effects  where  qual- 
itative changes  are  facts  that  his  assumption  of  internal  causation  had  ' 
provided  for  an  explanation  of  certain  "phenomena"  incompatible 
with  their  causation  by  the  transmission  of  motion  from  an  external 
source,  and  hence  a  modal  modification  not  traceable  to  material 
causality.  In  this  way  it  might  well  admit  the  qualitative  difference 
between  consciousness  and  external  motion,  refusing  to  apply  "  me- 
chanical "  causality  as  implying  equivalence  to  them,  so  as  to  make 
consciousness  an  incidental  effect  of  the  process  of  efficient  causation, 
either  of  external  motion  modified  by  the  subject  to  which  it  is  trans- 
mitted, or  of  the  internal  nature  and  action  of  the  subject  to  which  the 
motion  is  transmitted.  There  could  then  be  no  answer  to  its  position 
but  the  production  of  facts  which  would  prove  that,  whatever  relation 
consciousness  as  an  event  might  have  to  the  efficient  action  of  external 
stimulus,  it  was  and  is  not  a  function  of  the  material  organism  with 
which  it  is  associated  in  its  known  manifestations  usually,  that  is,  not 
a  merely  "  phenomenal  "  incident  of  composition,  but  a  mode  of  action 
which  has  a  persistence  equal  to  the  integrity  of  the  subject  of  which 
it  is  a  function  independent  of  the  organism  and  not  dissolvable  with 
it.  The  evidence  which  will  satisfy  any  such  terms  must  be  of  the 
kind  which  will  prove  the  identity  of  any  given  consciousness  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  organism.  Unless  this  is  undertaken  materialism 
will  have  the  advantage  of  the  distinction  between  efficient  and  mate- 
rial causes,  assuming  that  it  abandons  its  conception  of  "  mechanical  " 
causes,  and  also  of  the  uniform  association  of  consciousness  with  the 
material  organism  and  no  accepted  evidence  of  its  isolation  from  it. 

Summary. 
Greek  genius  showed  itself  in  its  art,  and  this  was  imitated  in  Ro- 
man tastes  and  manners.  This  reflected  a  sensuous  view  of  life  and  it 
infected  its  whole  religious  cult.  Philosophy  was  more  free  from  the 
infection,  but  did  not  wholly  escape  it,  and  in  the  Epicurean  system 
returned  to  the  natural  taste  and  conceptions  of  the  race.  In  its  revolt 
against  materialism,  Christianity  carried  its  spiritual  tendencies  into  the 
entire  field  of  human  interests,  and  so  embodied  its  conceptions  in  a 
fixed  antipathy  to  philosophic  materialism,  art  and  idolatry.  Nothing 
was  more  uncompromising  than  its  opposition  to  the  last.  Its  view  of 
spiritual  life  was  wholly  internal  and  it  turned  away  from  sense  as 
from  evil.     It  was  many  centuries  before  the  reaction  came,  and  this 


MATERIALISM.  4°7 

was  announced  by  the  revival  of  pictorial  art,  which  did  not  become 
dominant  at  once. 

i .  The  first  indication  of  a  materialistic  revival  was  the  rise  and 
prominence  of  painting  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  It  was 
religious  in  form,  but  represented  a  sensuous  instead  of  a  spiritual  con- 
ception of  religious  life.  The  inner  and  reflective  life  had  lost  its 
force  and  beauty,  and  the  religious  consciousness  sought  satisfaction  in 
reviving  the  contemplation  of  sensuous  embodiment  for  its  ideals. 
The  church  had  for  centuries  refused  to  recognize  this  interest  and  now 
it  sprang  again  into  existence  and  initiated  a  taste  for  the  real  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  ideal  world. 

2.  The  next  step  in  the  same  direction  was  the  Renaissance  or  the 
revival  of  ancient  literature  and  an  enthusiasm  for  a  natural  life.  This 
was  the  feature  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Greek  and 
Roman  ideals  began  to  supplant  the  Christian  and  the  mind  had  its 
momentum  toward  material  life  and  civilization  increased. 

3.  The  Protestant  Reformation  extended  the  same  impulse  to 
religious  authority  and  originated  freedom  of  conscience  and  belief. 
This  occupied  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, and  eviscerated  the 
power  of  the  church  to  interfere  successfully  with  the  progress  of 
science  which  had  begun  to  show  its  conquests  over  traditional  views  of 
nature  and  terminated  in  the  "  higher  criticism  "  which  was  the  logical 
consequence  of  raising  the  question  of  authority  in  human  belief. 

4.  In  the  whole  history  of  Christianity  there  was  a  field  of  reality 
consigned  to  ' '  natural "  agencies  and  this  meant  originally  physical 
forces.  Providential  and  Divine  agency  applied  wherever  the  physical 
did  not  seem  to  explain  things.  This  field  of  physical  powers  was  a 
comparatively  limited  one,  and  as  long  as  the  belief  in  miracles  endured 
there  was  no  difficulty  in  finding  a  cause  for  any  apparent  exception 
to  the  domain  of  "  natural"  law.  General  cosmic  action  was  referred 
to  providential  agency  either  directly  or  indirectly.  Hence  with  the 
predominance  of  religious  conceptions  and  an  insistence  on  a  religious 
view  of  the  cosmos  the  Ptolemaic  system  became  a  dogma  whose  in- 
tegrity could  not  be  disturbed  without  affecting  religion  and  without 
creating  a  presumption  in  favor  of  the  opposing  view.  Copernican 
astronomy  set  aside  the  Ptolemaic  and  encouraged  confidence  in  the 
scientific  way  of  looking  at  things,  though  it  did  not  alter  the  field  of 
supposed  direct  Divine  action  in  the  regulation  of  the  cosmos.  But 
Newtonian  gravitation  followed  with  its  conception  of  ' '  natural " 
attraction  and  still  more  limited  the  field  of  miraculous  interference. 
Then  came  Darwinism  and  extended  "  natural  "  action  to  the  formation 


4-oS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

■of  species,  and  did  for  time  what  Newtonian  gravitation  did  for  space, 
namely,  applied  "  natural  "  agencies  to  the  field  of  organic  creation  as 
gravitation  explains  the  collocations  of  matter.  The  last  fortress  of 
creationism  had  been  the  beginning  of  things  in  time  when  some  out- 
side agency  was  required  to  initiate  them.  But  gravitation  and  evolu- 
tion transferred  this  initium  into  so  remote  a  period  that  anything  could 
be  said  with  impunity  about  it.  The  increase  of  material  agencies  in 
the  explanation  of  phenomena  left  no  assured  field  for  the  "  supernat- 
ural," and  the  materialistic  theory  obtained  the  victory. 

5.  The  first  definite  admission  of  the  sufficiency  of  a  mechanical 
theory  of  "nature"  was  that  of  Descartes.  He  allowed  "natural" 
causes  to  prevail  in  the  field  of  matter,  though  he  admitted  the  Divine 
as  an  initiating  agency.  But  mechanical  causes  were  deemed  adequate 
to  the  explanation  of  all  material  phenomena.  Spinoza  followed  and 
reduced  mental  phenomena,  which  Descartes  had  excepted  from 
material  influences,  to  functional  events  in  a  material  substance  or 
Absolute.  Dalton  came  with  a  restatement  of  the  atomic  theory  and 
used  a  system  of  internal  forces  to  explain  the  combinations  of  matter 
and  thus  applied  materialism  to  all  compounds.  Thus  it  seemed  that 
both  the  monistic  and  the  pluralistic  view  of  "  nature"  were  consistent 
with  materialism. 

6.  Christianity  had  organized  a  theory  of  creation  as  against  the 
Greek  doctrine  of  evolution  and  so  placed  spirit  at  the  basis  of  things, 
matter  being  phenomenal  and  evanescent.  But  the  discovery  of  the 
indestructibility  of  matter  reversed  this  order  and  tended  to  make 
mental  phenomena  incidental  and  transient.  Philosophy  had  been  so 
saturated  with  the  conviction  that  there  was  but  one  ultimate  basis  for 
existence  that  the  eternal  nature  of  matter  simply  dispossessed  the 
priority  of  mind  unless  it  could  be  assigned  a  function  in  the  movement 
of  matter,  and  there  this  idea  prevailed  to  account  for  the  changes  of 
the  cosmic  order  until  the  conservation  of  energy  seemed  to  reinstate 
the  same  eternity  for  motion  that  indestructibility  applied  to  matter. 
The  materialistic  theory  thus  seemed  to  prevail  over  the  whole  king- 
dom of  "nature."  Mental  phenomena  became  transient  accidents  of 
organization  and  disappeared  as  many  other  functions  of  matter  with 
the  dissolution  of  the  compounds  with  which  they  were  associated. 

7.  Physiology  and  pathology  added  their  acquisitions  to  the  same  con- 
clusion. In  them  the  integrity  of  consciousness  seemed  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  the  organism  and  its  conditions,  so  that  it  appears  to  be  a  func- 
tion of  this  organism  and  not  of  some  other  and  associated  reality  such 
as  a  soul.     There  thus  seemed  no  field  for  the  independence  of  mind. 


CHAPTER   XL 
SPIRITUALISM. 

It  will  be  necessary  here  to  examine  somewhat  closely  the  meaning 
of  spiritualism,  though  it  has  been  defined  'previously  with  a  view  to 
establishing  its  antithesis  to  materialism.  This  relation  was  considered 
briefly  in  the  classification  of  the  theories  of  knowledge  and  reality  (p. 
72),  but  it  will  require  to  be  reconsidered  here  in  order  to  make  per- 
fectly clear  the  complicated  problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal  in  an 
exposition  of  it,  and  of  the  arguments  by  which  it  is  supported. 
Materialism  has  always  been  a  comparatively  simple  theory,  in  that  it 
applied  the  same  formula  to  cosmic  and  psychological  "  phenomena," 
explaining  absolutely  all  events  in  the  same  general  way,  and  consti- 
tuting, in  one  sense  at  least,  a  system  of  monism,  whether  of  the  Spin- 
ozistic  or  the  Lucretian  type.  But  spiritualism  has  not  always  insisted 
upon  describing  and  explaining  cosmic  "  phenomena  "  by  the  same 
general  principle.  It  has  sometimes  accepted  a  field  for  material 
"phenomena"  distinct  from  the  mental,  as  in  Cartesian  dualism  and 
the  various  conceptions  of  "  common  sense."  In  this  form  it  is  a 
theory  opposed  only  to  what  is  here  called  psychological  materialism, 
and  might  be  conceived  as  consistent  with  pan-materialism.  Only  oc- 
casionally has  it  assumed  the  form  of  "  pan-spiritualism,"  a  claim  often 
made  for  the  system  of  Spinoza  by  those  who  feel  that  they  cannot 
escape  its  meshes  and  who  wish  therefore  to  delude  themselves  and 
others  with  the  illusion  that  idealism  is  a  good  substitute  for  religion. 
I  have  already  indicated  that  this  pan-spiritualism  does  not  escape  the 
necessity  of  considering  the  problem  which  has  been  so  hotly  discussed 
between  psychological  materialism  and  psychological  spiritualism, 
namely,  that  regarding  the  value  and  persistence  of  consciousness, 
whose  value  depends  upon  its  persistence.  Consequently,  as  this 
problem  would  take  the  form  of  determining  the  relation  between  the 
different  modes  of  a  spiritual,  absolute,  and  as  materialism  has  usually 
taken  the  form  of  an  atomic  doctrine,  it  will  be  best  to  discuss  the 
problem  in  the  form  in  which  its  historical  setting  has  been  determined. 
But  even  in  its  conception  of  an  antithesis  to  psychological  materialism 
it  has  indirectly  complicated  itself  with  cosmic  problems  without  be- 
coming a  monistic  theory  itself.  On  this  account  I  have  divided  the 
doctrine  into  three  types,  the  theological,  the  philosophical  and  the 
409 


410  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

scientific,  according  to  the  method  adopted  for  its  solution,  and  accord- 
ing as  it  is  or  is  not  complicated  with  speculations  that  are  extrane- 
ous, or  only  indirectly  connected  with  its  main  object,  the  permanence 
of  consciousness.  Theological  spiritualism  bases  its  support  for  the 
persistence  and  value  of  consciousness  upon  a  divine  revelation  ;  philo- 
sophic spiritualism  upon  rationalistic  interpretations  of  the  nature  of 
things ;  and  scientific  spiritualism  upon  inductive  and  experimental 
evidence.  These  several  points  of  view  often  interpenetrate,  so  that 
the  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  spiritualism  generally  will  bring  us 
into  contact  with  all  of  them  in  the  course  of  its  history,  and  I  shall 
leave  to  the  reader  the  detection  of  the  specific  type  that  is  under  dis- 
cussion at  any  time,  the  main  point  to  be  remembered  being  that  they 
are  all  designed  to  refute  materialism  in  one  or  all  its  forms. 

There  is  another  complication  in  which  spiritualism  and  its  contro- 
versy with  materialism  is  involved.  Spiritualism  has  a  destructive 
and  a  constructive  function  to  perform.  The  first  necessity  of  its  exist- 
ence is  the  denial  and  refutation  of  materialism,  a  negative  or  sceptical 
function  which  does  not  commit  it  to  any  constructive  work  in  the 
argument.  The  result  of  stopping  with  the  refutation  of  materialism 
would  only  be  that  this  theory  would  not  explain  the  nature  and  mean- 
ing of  consciousness,  but  it  would  not  necessarily  determine  any  reality 
that  did  explain  the  "phenomena"  of  mind.  Immaterialism,  so  to 
speak,  would  be  the  result,  with  liberty  to  give  it  any  interpretation 
that  other  interests  might  determine.  The  constructive  effort  might 
take  the  direction  of  either  pan-spiritualism  or  of  psychological  spirit- 
ualism, whether  of  the  theological,  the  philosophical,  or  the  scientific 
type.  But  it  is  rare  that  it  denies  the  existence  of  matter  unequiv- 
ocally. It  may,  and  often  enough  does,  deny  the  "independent" 
existence  of  "matter,"  that  is,  a  self-existent  material  reality  capable 
of  explaining  "phenomena"  of  any  kind  or  in  any  way,  but  when  it 
comes  to  characterize  "  reality  "  constructively  which  will  explain, 
the  theory  which  takes  this  course  is  not  always  zealous  to  call  this 
"reality"  God  or  to  imply  that  it  is  consciousness  of  any  intelligible 
sort.  It  is  idealism  in  the  garb  of  spiritualism,  while  those  who  are 
willing  to  describe  the  "  reality,"  which  in  some  way  "  creates"  what 
ordinarily  passes  for  "matter"  in  the  mind  of  the  idealist,  as  God, 
adopt  the  theological  type  of  spiritualism.  But  as  the  majority  of  men 
admit  the  existence  of  "matter  "as  something  capable  of  producing 
effects,  whether  directly  or  indirectly,  and  whether  it  is  conceived  as 
a  self-existent  or  an  independent  reality,  the  usual  antithesis  implied 
between  materialism  and    spiritualism  is  that  in  which  spiritualism 


SPIRI TUA  LISM.  4 1 1 

loes  not  deny  the  existence  of  matter  in  some  sense  of  the  term,  but 
denies  the  adequacy  of  matter  to  explain  all  the  '*  phenomena"  of  the 
cosmos,  and  especially  the  ''phenomena"  of  consciousness.  The 
materialistic  theory  is  not  primarily  occupied  with  proving  the  exist- 
ence of  matter  but  with  its  explanatory  power.  It  simply  takes  the 
existence  of  matter  for  granted  and  undertakes  to  explain  "  phe- 
nomena "  by  the  use  of  its  functions.  Of  course  it  would  be  a  fine 
controversial  advantage  to  deny  the  materialist's  assumption  of  the 
existence  of  matter  as  it  would  throw  upon  him  the  burden  of  proving 
what  he  assumes  as  evident.  But  when  we  recognize  that  the  anti- 
materialist  who  appears  to  be  denying  so  Valiantly  the  very  existence 
of  matter  is  not  denying  either  the  facts  which  the  materialist  has  in 
his  possession  or  the  relations  between  "  phenomena  "  which  are  equally 
evident  facts,  we  find  that  the  denial  is  a  mere  subterfuge  to  avoid 
using  the  word  "  materialism "  where  it  would  be  extremely  incon- 
venient to  do  so.  But,  as  I  have  previously  remarked,  the  question  is 
not  whether  we  shall  use  the  terms  "  matter  "  or  "  spirit,"  but  whether 
the  relation  between  consciousness  and  other  events  in  respect  of  con- 
nection or  causality  and  permanence  is  or  is  not  what  the  "  material- 
ist "  claims  it  is,  as  this  problem  would  only  involve  a  slight  change 
of  terms,  whether  we  assume  the  monistic  or  the  pluralistic  point  of 
view.  Hence  the  primary  question  is  not  the  existence  of  anything 
called  "matter,"  but  the  adequacy  of  the  explanation  which  embodies 
itself  in  the  term  materialism,  whether  considered  as  a  "  phenomenal " 
or  a  "  noumenal "  theory,  that  is  to  say,  whether  it  deals  with  mere 
coexistences  and  sequence  of  events  or  involves  the  assumption  of  real 
substances  or  atoms,  monistic  or  pluralistic. 

The  consequence  of  these  facts  is  that  I  shall  define  spiritualism  as 
the  theory  which  denies  that  consciousness  is  a  function  of  organization 
in  matter,  but  affirms  that  it  is  a  function  of  some  other  reality.  This 
general  point  of  view  has  been  sufficiently  indicated  before  and  is  only 
renewed  here  to  have  it  present  in  the  recognition  of  the  circumstance 
that  the  arguments  in  behalf  of  the  doctrine  are  partly  negative  of  ma- 
terialism and  partly  positive  in  support  of  spiritualism.  Some  avail  only 
to  create  difficulties  in  the  materialistic  view  and  some  avail  to  suggest 
or  demand,  in  the  name  of  the  principle  of  causality  which  material- 
ism respects,  a  source  for  mental  phenomena  other  than  anything  called 
matter,  at  least  as  long  as  that  conception  is  limited  to  the  accepted 
definition  of  it.  I  shall  not  classify  the  negative  and  positive  argu- 
ments, but  discuss  the  problem  in  its  historical  development  and 
changes  with  the  arguments  for  and  against  and  leave  the  student  to 


412  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

determine  when  I  am  dealing  with  destructive  and  when  with  con- 
structive considerations.  The  negative  arguments  can  not  prove 
spiritualism,  but,  if  valid  at  all,  only  that  the  materialistic  theory  is 
insufficient  to  account  for  all  the  "  phenomena  "  of  observation.  They 
can  suggest  or  prove  nothing  more  than  the  fact  that  an  immaterial 
reality  is  necessary  to  meet  the  demands  of  explanation.  But  to  prove 
spiritualism  we  should  have  to  show  that  this  immaterial  reality  is 
actually  conscious,  or  that  there  is  a  type  of  immaterial  reality 
that  is  conscious.  Spiritualism  must  imply  consciousness  or  it  is 
not  different  from  materialism  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  problem 
before  us,  namely,  the  value,  meaning  and  persistence  of  consciousness. 
Here  is  where  Berkeley  made  his  failure.  His  abstraction  from  the 
sensible  did  not  give  him  "spirit,"  not  even  an  escape  from  the  his- 
torical materialism  whose  conception  of  matter  was  a  supersensible  re- 
ality, but  only  a  negation  of  sensational  materialism,  or  the  "  common 
sense  "  conception  of  matter  which  assumes  that  sensation  gives  us  the 
true  "  nature  "  of  it.  But  even  if  the  abstraction  of  the  sensible  did 
rightly  displace  materialism  the  existence  of  "  spirit "  did  not  follow  as 
the  reality  which  he  placed  at  the  basis  of  the  cosmos,  because  his  dis- 
junction was  not  correct.  Assuming  the  dualistic  position  of  Descartes 
the  argument  was  sound  enough.  But  that  reality  must  be  limited  to 
the  two  kinds,  mind  and  matter,  is  a  purely  arbitrary  assumption.  There 
may  be  any  number  of  realities  neither  mental  nor  material  in  the  uni- 
verse, so  that  the  only  conclusion  which  Berkeley  could  draw,  even 
admitting  that  he  had  escaped  the  historical  materialism,  was  that  the 
ultimate  basis  of  things  was  immaterial,  and  he  should  have  presented 
special  and  additional  evidence  that  this  reality  was  conscious.  The 
positive  assertion  of  spiritualism,  if  it  is  to  have  any  definite  meaning, 
must  imply  the  presence  of  consciousness.  I  do  not  say  that  it  must 
be  true.  That  is  the  question  to  be  decided.  But  the  only  doctrine 
that  can  satisfy  the  demand  for  the  persistence  of  consciousness  or 
the  survival  of  personal  identity  beyond  the  dissolution  of  the 
organism  is  that  which  defines  "spirit"  or  "soul"  as  implying  the 
fact.  If  we  prefer,  we  may  say  that  "  spirit "  should  technically  mean 
discarnate  "  soul "  and  "  soul "  incarnate  "  spirit,"  but  in  so  far  as  the 
general  theory  of  spiritualism  is  concerned  either  term  will  satisfy  the 
definition.  Unless  idealism  is  synonymous  with  this  conception,  it  can 
only  mean  immaterialism  and  remain  agnostic  or  dogmatically  opposed 
to  survival  after  death.  It  is  usually  one  or  the  other  of  these  alter- 
natives. Its  opposition  to  materialism  is  only  technical  and  conceives 
it  as  a  sensational  theory  of  things  while  it  intends  to  be  an  intellectual 


SPIRITUALISM.  4J3 

doctrine,  as  I  have  already  shown  above.  The  negative  arguments 
for  spiritualism,  if  valid,  do  not  take  us  beyond  the  refutation  of 
materialism,  but  do  not  establish  positively  the  persistence  of  con- 
sciousness, though  at  least  suggesting  its  possibility.  Whether  any 
such  result  be  possible  is  not  the  problem  that  is  before  us,  but  only 
the  conception  of  the  theory  that  must  be  definitely  and  clearly  opposed 
to  materialism  and  satisfy  the  assertion  that  consciousness  is  not  a 
function  of  the  bodily  organism. 

The  doctrine  of  spiritualism  was  not  clearly  defined  until  Chris- 
tianity asserted  it  and  worked  out  the  theory  with  a  philosophy.  The 
anti-materialism  of  the  Greeks  was  largely  a  denial  of  the  sensa- 
tionalism of  the  earlier  period  of  reflection  and  an  assertion  of  intel- 
lectualism,  the  distinction  involving  nothing  more  ethically  and  philo- 
sophically than  the  superior  value  of  the  intellectual  life,  the  importance 
of  recognizing  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  as  they  were  em- 
bodied in  nature,  art  and  politics.  This  general  characterization  of 
Greek  thought,  however,  may  do  an  injustice  to  some  of  its  represen- 
tatives and  to  the  actual  beliefs  of  common  people  of  whom  we  have 
heard  little  or  nothing  directly.  Indicating,  as  I  have  done,  that  the 
main  tendency  of  Greek  speculation  was  a  distinction  between  realities 
of  the  same  kind  and  only  between  the  sensible  and  supersensible  forms 
of  this  realitv  which  was  monistically  conceived,  whether  as  in  atomism 
or  in  the  pantheistic  view,  the  test  whether  spiritualism  describes  any 
conceptions  philosophically  entertained  by  that  race  must  be  found  in 
their  doctrine  of  immortality,  because  there  is  no  way  whatever  to  show, 
that  consciousness  is  not  a  function  of  the  organism  but  to  maintain  a 
theory  which  asserts  its  survival  of  bodily  death.  Now  Plato  main- 
tained with  much  positiveness  and  argument  that  the  soul  was  im- 
mortal, Aristotle  admitted  it  for  the  "rational  soul,"  and  the  Stoics 
held  it  in  a  rather  vague  form.  With  Socrates  it  was  a  pious  belief 
not  worked  out  philosophically.  It  is  probable  that  some  sort  of 
personal  survival  was  accepted  by  the  common  people  at  one  time  at 
least,  for  there  is  evidence  from  statements  of  Homer  and  later  writers 
that  Hades,  the  land  of  ghosts  and  shadows,  was  the  place  of  discar- 
nate  souls  whose  life  was  a  more  or  less  conscious  one,  but  less  inter- 
esting and  perfect  than  their  incarnate  existence.  But  the  philosophers 
evaded  responsibility  for  any  such  naive  views,  and  if  their  silence  is 
evidence,  they  seem  to  have  shied  at  ghost  stories  quite  as  the  materia- 
list of  to-day  does.  Whatever  conception  they  took  of  immortality  was 
colored,  as  was  quite  natural  and  is  perhaps  always  the  case,  by  their 
general  philosophy  of  nature,  as  they  considered  the  "  soul "  such  a 


414  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

part  of  nature  as  to  be  involved  in  its  process  and  tendencies.  But 
their  conception  of  it,  be  this  what  it  may,  must  be  the  test  of  what  is 
meant  by  the  application  of  a  spiritualistic  doctrine  to  them  and  must 
also  describe  the  nature  and  limits  of  the  "  idealism"  that  is  attributed 
to  them.  We  have  seen  enough  in  the  discussion  of  materialism  to 
learn  that  it  is  not  the  words  used  that  determines  the  meaning  of  a 
theory  but  the  synthetic  implications  of  it  in  a  wide  range  of  facts  and 
beliefs.  This  same  consideration  must  be  taken  into  account  in  dis- 
cussing the  relation  of  Greek  thought  to  the  problems  which  center  about 
the  nature  and  persistence  of  consciousness.  The  fact  that  they  use  the 
words  "soul"  and  "immortality"  does  not  imply  of  itself  that  they 
had  conceptions  of  them  the  same  as  ours  in  any  respect.  This  is  even 
apparent  in  the  "  phenomenal  "  use  of  the  term  "  soul "  by  the  entire 
"empirical"  school  of  phenomenalists  in  modern  times,  where  it  is 
conceived  as  the  name  for  mental  states,  not  for  the  subject  of  them  or 
for  a  reality  other  than  the  brain,  the  last  supposition  not  being  enter- 
tained by  them.  The  Greek  philosophers  did  not  make  clear  whether 
they  viewed  the  "  soul"  as  a  substance  or  as  an  attribute,  if  I  may  use 
a  modern  distinction  which  enables  us  to  distinguish  between  the  sub- 
ject and  the  "  phenomena  "  of  consciousness.  This  modern  distinction 
enables  us  to  assume  a  permanent  fact  different  from  its  action,  which 
may  be  variously  interrupted  or  ephemeral.  The  substance  remains 
permanent  while  its  actions  as  functions  may  be  "  phenomenal,"  if  in 
any  way  the  resultant  of  its  combination  with  another  substance.  The 
Greek,  of  course,  had  a  conception  of  substance,  but  until  materialism 
in  the  atomic  form  modified  philosophic  conceptions  he  conceived  sub- 
stance in  action  as  a  process  of  metamorphosis,  after  the  analogy  of 
evolutionary  growth,  and  not  of  combination,  after  the  analogy  of 
the  composition  of  forces,  though  in  fact  we  find  a  very  frequent  com- 
promise or  union  of  both  points  of  view  during  the  process  of  develop- 
ment into  clearer  views  which  were  realized  in  the  materialistic  theory 
and  the  reaction  in  Christian  thought ;  clearer  because  the  development 
brought  out  the  distinctions  necessary  to  show  the  nature  of  the  impli- 
cations involved.  But  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  "  substance  " 
was  as  clear  to  Greek  thought  as  to  any  other,  its  failure  to  distinguish 
between  kinds  of  substance  as  radically  as  later  thought  of  every  type** 
prevented  it  from  distinguishing  as  clearly  between  its  modal  manifes- 
tations, and  as  the  "  soul"  was  conceived  in  the  form  of  a  refined  mat- 
ter its  functions  were  inevitably  implicated  in  preconceptions  of  the 
same  nature,  so  that  the  permanence  that  the  mental  would  get  must 
be  analogous  to  the  permanence  which  was  asserted  or  believed  of  the 


SPIRITUALISM.  415 

material.  This  tendency  would  determine  the  meaning  of  the  term 
"  immortality,"  which  is  consistent  with  either  the  indestructibility  of 
matter  or  the  permanence  of  consciousness,  or  with  either  a  doctrine 
of  metamorphosis,  metempsychosis,  or  with  personal  survival  after 
death.  Which  view  the  Greeks  had  must  be  determined  in  order  to 
interpret  the  meaning  of  either  "  idealism  "  or  spiritualism  as  applied 
to  their  speculative  position  in  philosophy  generally. 

It  is  Plato  that  subsequent  generations  have  selected  to  represent 
the  anti-materialistic  theory  of  Greek  philosophy.  The  reason  for  this, 
of  course,  was  his  affirmation  of  immortality.  Had  not  his  statements 
been  definitely  on  the  affirmative  of  this  doctrine  less  sympathy  with 
his  philosophy  by  later  times  would  have  been  declared.  This  is  appa- 
rent in  the  comparative  indifference  shown  to  Aristotle  on  this  same 
point,  as  he  was  less  explicit  in  the  defence  of  the  doctrine,  though 
admitting  it  for  the  "rational"  part  of  man.  Aristotle  was  the 
authority  for  conceptions  and  arguments  in  behalf  of  a  theistic  origin 
of  the  cosmos,  a  doctrine  which  was  worked  out  to  indirectly  support 
immortality,  after  direct  evidence  was  more  or  less  discredited.  But 
Plato  has  left  us  an  explicit  defence  of  a  doctrine  of  immortality  and 
later  Christian  thought  did  not  ask  any  discriminating  questions  in  the 
interpretation  of  it  when  an  affirmative  doctrine  could  be  used  at  least 
for  ad  hominem  purposes  with  Greek  and  philosophic  thinkers  who 
did  not  know  enough  of  Platonic  philosophy  to  discover  its  inherent 
variation  from  the  personal  immortality  which  was  the  subject  of  pur- 
suit in  Christian  thought.  It  was  the  fine  ethical  spirit  of  Plato  that  cap- 
tivated the  earlier  Christian  thinkers,  an  ethical  spirit  that  coincided  with 
theirs,  except  that  it  was  more  definitely  limited  in  its  applications  to 
aesthetic  and  political  life  than  among  Christians.  Plato  had  connected 
morality  with  his  doctrine  of  immortality,  and  in  this  way  it  was  easy 
to  assume  that  his  view  of  the  order  of  things  was  identical  with  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  probation  and  personal  immortality,  but  a  care- 
ful study  of  Plato,  such  as  modern  philosophy  enables  us  to  make,  will 
reveal  the  fact  that  it  is  just  as  easy  to  misrepresent  the  identity  of  the 
two  positions  as  it  was  for  the  ancients  to  misunderstand  Plato  when 
the  fundamental  postulates  of  the  Greek  philosophy  of  nature  had  been 
forgotten.  The  psychological  and  metaphysical  points  of  view  in  the 
two  movements  must  be  carefully  distinguished  in  any  estimation  of 
their  relations  to  the  problem  which  we  are  here  discussing.  Their 
psychological  and  metaphysical  antitheses  were  expressed  in  the  same 
terms,  but  did  not  have  the  same  conceptions  or  implications.  The 
psychological  antithesis  in  both  cases  was  between  "  sense"  and  "  rea- 


41 6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

son  "  with  perhaps  comparative  identity  of  meaning.  But  correspond- 
ing to  this  was  their  antithesis  between  "  matter"  and  "  spirit"  in  the 
metaphysical  field.  But  with  the  Greek  this  antithesis  wras  between  a 
sensible  and  a  supersensible  reality  within  the  physical  world  alone, 
while  with  the  Christian  the  distinction  between  the  "sensible"  and 
"  supersensible  "  worlds  was  an  antithesis  between  the  physical  and  the 
superphysical,  involving  the  idea  that  the  "  spiritual "  was  essentially 
immaterial,  while  that  of  the  Greeks  was  only  a  refined  material  real- 
ity. This  fact  must  be  perpetually  kept  in  mind  when  estimating  the 
meaning  of  Greek  thought  and  in  the  interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of 
Plato  who  only  apparently  transcended  the  conceptions  of  his  time  and 
race,  simply  because  he  did  not  clearly  break  with  them,  though  he 
certainly  brings  us  to  the  point  where  that  break  is  natural,  and  sug- 
gests that  he  had  a  glimpse  of  what  he  could  not  make  clear  either  to 
himself  or  others. 

I  shall  not  assert  without  qualification  that  Plato  had  no  conception 
whatever  of  a  personal  immortality  of  some  kind,  because  we  must 
always  remember  two  things  in  regard  to  his  philosophy.  First,  it 
was  cosmopolitan  and  represented  more  or  less  the  convergence  of 
every  stream  of  thought  previous  to  his  own  time,  embellished  with  an 
art  that  no  other  Greek  could  give  it.  Secondly,  his  own  doctrines 
were  never  worked  out  with  complete  consistency  nor  into  a  systematic 
whole  like  the  doctrines  of  Aristotle.  Plato  was  too  much  enamored 
with  dialectic  as  an  art  and  with  the  dramatization  of  philosophic  dis- 
course, and  also  too  conscious  of  the  sceptical  difficulties  involved 
in  any  dogmatic  system,  to  intrust  himself  with  any  final  conclu- 
sions on  one  side  only  of  a  problem.  He  was  forever  looking  at 
both  sides  of  the  shield  of  Hercules,  trying  to  get  a  unity  which  he 
never  found  in  what  was  essentially  double  faced  to  his  point  of  view, 
and  hence  could  not  cut  himself  free  from  the  monism  which  coordi- 
nated mind  and  matter  to  adopt  either  a  dualism  that  coordinated  them 
in  a  higher  unity  of  mind,  or  a  monism  that  subordinated  matter  to 
mind.  He  accepted  as  final  the  monistic  postulates  of  his  race  which 
assumed  that  the  individual  mind  had  the  same  destiny  as  matter,  and 
was  not  swerved  from  it  by  any  antithesis  between  sense  and  reason, 
or  between  the  sensible  and  supersensible  worlds,  any  more  than  were 
the  materialists.  But.  on  the  other  hand,  he  assigned  an  ethical  value 
to  the  intellectual  functions  of  "  experience  "  or  to  all  the  higher  forms 
of  consciousness  without  discovering  that  it  might  point  to  a  meta- 
physical theory  inconsistent  with,  or  at  least  quite  different  from,  the 
conception  that  the  soul  was  only  a  refined   form   of  matter  with  char- 


SPIRITUALISM.  417 

acteristics  that  associated  its  action  and  destiny  with  all  organisms  of 
whatever  sort.  Between  the  two  conceptions  he  remained  indeter- 
minate, now  tending  toward  one  and  now  toward  the  other  with  no 
final  decision  of  character,  and  the  many-sided  convergence  in  him  of 
all  Greek  thought  had  to  diverge  into  later  schools  to  discover  the 
potentialities  of  his  complicated  conceptions.  Hence  the  real  or  ap- 
parent contradictions  of  his  system.  There  were  many  things  in  his 
doctrine  that  connected  him  with  later  Christian  thought,  both  in 
forms  of  expression  and  in  the  moral  purity  of  his  ideas.  But  in  real- 
ity this  connection  is  often  more  formal  than  material,  when  carefully 
examined,  and  consequently  his  spiritualistic  metaphysics  can  receive 
that  name  only  with  the  qualification  that  the  spiritual  consists  of  the 
intellectual  refinements  of  art  and  culture  rather  than  the  brutalities  of 
sense  and  passion. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  Plato's  position  without  some  expo- 
sition of  what  it  was  in  his  own  terms,  with  a  complete  translation  of 
it  into  the  terms  and  conceptions  of  later  thought.  His  fundamental 
conception  was  a  union  of  the  Eleatic  and  Heraclitic  philosophies,  and 
began  with  a  denial  of  the  Sophistic  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  all 
knowledge  while  admitting  this  of  sense.  He  started  from  the  anthro- 
pocentric  point  of  view  with  a  psychology  that  based  the  origin  of  all 
knowledge  from  two  separate  sources,  sense  perception  and  reason, 
and  for  each  of  these  he  had  a  corresponding  object.  The  object  of 
sense  was  change  or  "  phenomena,"  the  Heraclitic  flux;  the  object  of 
"reason"  was  the  "real"  or  the  permanent,  the  Eleatic  "being." 
The  antithesis  between  sense  perception  and  intellectual  intuition  was 
parallel  with  the  antithesis  between  the  sensible  world  of  change  and 
the  supersensible  world  of  the  permanent  and  eternal.  The  objects  of 
sense  were  called  "  phenomena  "  :  the  objects  of  reason  were  called 
"  ideas."  With  this  machinery  at  his  command  there  began  a  philo- 
sophic play  with  the  facts  of  the  cosmic  and  human  order  which  has 
no  equal  in  the  annals  of  thought,  for  the  combined  interests  of  litera- 
ture, science,  ethics,  politics  and  metaphysics.  Nothing  but  a  trans- 
lation of  its  flights  into  modern  terms  will  make  it  intelligible. 

With  Plato  the  term  "idea"  was  the  open  sesame  for  all  philo- 
sophic problems.  It  did  duty  for  at  least  five  distinct  things:  (1) 
abstract  general  concepts;  (2)  the  conferential  or  universal  qualities 
of  things  which  correspond  to  these  concepts ;  (3)  substance  or  reality 
which  was  the  subject  of  these  attributes  or  qualities ;  (4)  the  good  or 
ideal  ends  of  conduct;  (5)  the  formative  or  active  principle  in  the 
production  of  the  cosmic  order  of  things,  which,  with  the  doctrine  that 

27 


41 S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

universal  qualities  were  the  "essence"  of  reality,  did  not  distinguish 
between  the  efficient  and  material  cause  of  what  was  intellectually  seen 
in  the  sensible  world.  A  conception  so  rich  in  content  as  this  and 
comprehending  such  widely  different  facts  and  realities  was  sure  to 
give  trouble  when  any  of  the  concrete  problems  of  thought  were 
brought  to  it  for  explanation.  The  "idea"  was  the  permanent  and 
sensation  was  the  transient,  as  also  was  the  latter's  object.  Applied 
to  the  soul  the  question  of  its  permanence  would  depend  first  upon  its 
place  in  this  scheme.  If  it  was  a  sensible  "phenomenon"  it  was 
transient;  if  it  was  a  supersensible  fact  it  was  permanent.  But  even 
after  this  latter  question  was  decided  there  was  still  the  more  important 
issue  to  be  determined,  namely,  whether  this  permanence  represented 
the  conception  which  modern  life  takes  of  it  when  speaking  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  This  permanent  reality  of  Plato,  when  care- 
fully defined,  turned  out  to  be  in  one  of  its  widest  and  most  important 
applications,  namely,  nothing  but  the  universal  properties  of  objects,  the 
common  qualities  which  enabled  us  to  classify  them  in  kind  and  not  to 
predetermine  their  destiny,  as  this  destiny  was  predetermined  by  the 
atoms  of  the  materialists,  these  being  realities  which  were  individual 
and  having  some  determinate  qualities  that  persisted  through  all  their 
changes.  But  Plato's  permanent  or  "  idea"  was  not  individual  as  the 
atoms  were  conceived,  except  in  one  case,  but  was  a  mode  or  quality  of 
things  representing  the  metamorphosis  of  some  ultimate  reality  into  the 
"  phenomenal "  world  of  sense  without  altering  its  essential  identity, 
and  hence  was  not  the  result  of  composition  among  a  number  of  unities 
independent  of  each  other.  Consequently  the  conception  of  individu- 
ality with  Plato  represented  the  transient  or  ephemeral  and  not  the 
eternal  unities  represented  by  the  atoms.  His  permanent,  the  uni- 
versal, conceived  as  a  mode  of  reality  was  the  transfused  identity  of 
species  that  were  forever  changing,  appearing  and  disappearing,  with 
such  similarity  as  would  show  the  persistence  of  the  same  kind  of 
material  in  the  metamorphoses  and  creations  of  nature,  .but  this  per- 
manence of  the  universal  qualities  was  not  the  fixed  permanence  of  the 
substance  of  the  atomists  as  a  unitary  reality,  but  the  permanence  of  a 
material  "  essence  "  which  had  lost  its  previous  individuality  in  each  in- 
carnation. The  difficulty  with  Plato  lay  in  his  simple  classification  of 
reality  into  the  accidental  or  individual  and  the  necessary  or  universal 
without  taking  account  of  the  further  and  important  distinction  between 
simple  substance  and  its  permanent  attributes,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
between  composite  reality  and  its  resultant  "  phenomenal  "  attributes 
or  modes,  on  the  other.     This  was  clear  to  the  materialists  who  also 


SPIRITUALISM.  4 1 9 

simplified  the  whole  problem  by  reducing  it  to  a  question  of  "  matter" 
and  "  form,"  inverting  the  uses  of  these  terms  in  Plato.  This  was 
first  done  by  Aristotle  who  employed  "matter"  to  denote,  not  the 
sensible  world  merely,  but  the  stuff  or  substance  out  of  which  the 
sensible  world  was  made  and  "form"  for  the  mode  in  which  it  was 
made.  In  this  he  simplified  the  Platonic  conception  and  removed  its 
confusion.  With  Plato  "  matter"  was  the  transient  fact,  the  sensible 
world  of  ' '  phenomenal "  forms  which  represented  the  materialist's 
complex  wholes,  and  the  "  idea"  or  form  was  the  permanent  fact  or 
reality,  the  "essence"  of  things,  a  conception  which  was  taken  to 
denote  indifferently  the  substance  which  constituted  the  object  and  the 
quality  which  determined  its  nature  in  comparison  with  others  and 
distinguished  the  conferential  from  the  differential  qualities  of  the  indi- 
vidual, the  last  being  the  evanescent  fact  of  existence.  Thus  the 
universal  properties  and  the  substance  of  things  were  the  same,  so  that 
the  "  material"  and  "  formal  "  causes  were  identical  in  the  conception 
of  Plato,  and  when  we  observe  also  that  he  attributed  to  this  "formal" 
cause,  the  "idea,"  the  formative  or  active  power  of  determining  the 
transition  from  the  supersensible  to  the  sensible  condition,  the  evolu- 
tionary metamorphosis  or  change  from  one  form  of  reality  to  another, 
we  discover  a  very  complex  problem  before  us  in  estimating  the  phi- 
losophy of  Plato  at  large  and  in  understanding  exactly  what  he  meant 
by  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  if  it  is  anything  more  than  the  persist- 
ence of  force.  A  term  which  does  not  distinguish  between  substance 
and  attribute  for  our  way  of  thinking  will  not  make  clear  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  permanence  of  the  substance  with  the  "phenomenal  " 
and  transient  character  of  sensible  properties,  and  the  persistence  of  a 
property  or  mode  of  action  through  all  the  changes  and  transforma- 
tions of  the  substance.  This  is  indispensable  to  modern  thought  which 
accepts  the  "  phenomenal "  nature  of  organisms  and  the  "  noumenal  " 
or  substantive  nature  of  the  elements  that  compose  them,  and  wants  to 
know  what  properties  or  functions  remain  to  the  elements  after  their 
separation  from  a  given  relation  or  synthesis  in  time  and  space.  As- 
suming that  certain  properties  are  the  resultant  of  organization,  it 
concedes  their  ephemeral  character  as  a  consequence,  but  assumes 
their  persistence  if  the  subject  of  them  is  not  dissolved  with  the  decom- 
position of  the  organism,  a  conception  granted  in  the  very  notion  of 
the  atoms.  Whatever  conception  of  the  case  Plato  may  have  had,  he 
did  not  present  it  in  a  way  to  suggest  any  such  view  of  persistence  as 
is  here  indicated.  He  was  aware  that  it  was  the  simple  that  was 
imperishable,  but  in  his  appeal  for  evidence  he  chose  the  point  of  view 


420  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  universal  qualities  which  described  the  identity  of  coexistent  and 
successive  species  without  necessarily  implying  the  identity  of  the 
individual  and  hence  its  permanence,  when  defined,  became  merely 
the  permanent  likeness  of  kind,  not  the  permanence  of  the  same 
quality  in  an  individual  in  spite  of  its  separation  from  a  given  synthesis. 
Plato  was  dealing  with  a  process  of  evolution,  a  process  which  he 
conceived  as  the  metamorphosis  of  a  plastic  reality  into  evanescent 
forms,  after  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus,  and  not  as  the  combination  of 
atomic  elements  with  the  appearance  of  qualities  as  incidents  of  that 
composition,  though  he  spoke  and  thought  of  the  simple  and  com- 
pound in  sympathy  with  an  atomic  theory  without  perceiving  any  real 
or  apparent  inconsistency  with  his  primary  view,  and  hence  in  his 
conception  of  the  process  as  a  transition,  chameleon  or  Protean  like, 
from  one  condition  to  another  of  a  permanent  substance,  instead  of 
original  resultants  of  changing  combinations,  he  could  never  decide 
clearly  between  a  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  and  a  doctrine  of  crea- 
tion, if  I  may  distinguish  in  this  way  between  the  modal  modifications  of 
a  single  reality  and  the  modal  resultant  of  a  multiple  of  realities.  Plato 
and  Epicurus  agreed  in  the  permanent  identity  of  substance  and  they 
agreed  in  the  "phenomenal"  nature  of  the  individual  or  differential 
facts  of  existence.  But  they  differed  in  their  conception  of  what  this 
substance  was,  Plato  thinking  it  one  and  Epicurus  thinking  it  many. 
Plato  was  uno-monistic,  Epicurus  was  pluro-monistic.  The  appear- 
ance of  individual  or  differential  qualities  in  Plato  was  conceived  as  a 
modal  change  of  the  same  substance ;  in  Epicurus  it  was  a  modal 
change  due  to  the  union  of  different,  though  similar,  substances. 
With  Plato  there  was  no  chance  for  the  persistence  of  the  individual 
quality,  but  only  of  the  identity  in  kind  of  the  separate  states  in  which 
reality  found  itself ;  with  Epicurus  there  was  a  chance  for  persistence 
of  some  one  or  more  qualities,  while  those  incidental  to  union  were 
transient.  Applied  to  consciousness,  Plato's  doctrine  could  only  main- 
tain its  identity  in  kind  between  different  individuals  in  either  space  or 
time,  but  not  the  persistence  of  the  individual,  which  was  only  a 
"  moment"  in  the  process  of  metempsychosis;  with  Epicurus,  unless 
it  was  made  an  inherent  function  of  the  atom,  which  it  was  not,  it 
could  only  be  a  "  moment  "  in  the  union  of  element's,  which  were  per- 
sistent without  it.  To  put  the  same  thought  in  Aristotelian  terms 
which  represent  modern  ways  of  expression  more  nearly  than  Plato, 
the  permanent  substance  was  a  plastic  matter  capable  of  indefinite 
modification  and  could  be  made  to  assume  any  form  desired  by  the 
creative  master  or  causal   principle.     Hence   the  identity  or  perma- 


SPIRITUALISM.  42 1 

nence  was  in  this  plastic  substance  and  not  of  the  individual  types  into 
which  it  was  evolved,  except  that  there  could  be  an  identity  of  kind 
without  a  persistence  of  the  differential  "  essence"  of  the  individual,  a 
point  quite  in  agreement  with  the  materialists  who  had  only  to  make 
consciousness  a  "differential  essence"  or  accident  of  union  to  accept 
the  doctrine  of  Plato.  With  Plato  the  "material"  or  constitutive 
element  was  permanent  and  this,  the  "idea"  or  "  form,"  was  trans- 
mitted from  individual  to  individual,  while  the  functional  variant,  the 
Heraclitean  modal  change,  or  "  phenomenal  matter  "of  the  sensible 
world,  itself  the  individual,  was  ephemeral.  But  by  taking  "  matter" 
to  represent  the  substance  of  both  the  sensible  and  supersensible,  the 
"phenomenal"  and  the  "  noumenal "  worlds,  and  the  "idea"  or 
"  form  "  to  represent  the  modal  differentiations  of  the  primitive  sub- 
stance into  the  types  of  the  "phenomenal"  world,  we  find  that  the 
Platonic  permanence  meant  only  the  constant  reappearance  of  the  same 
species,  not  the  continuance  of  the  individual. 

Plato  approached  the  problem  of  existence  from  two  points  of  view 
which  he  never  completely  reconciled  and  perhaps  could  not  easily 
have  reconciled  in  his  time,  if  he  had  tried.  He  saw  both  the  facts 
of  change  and  the  facts  of  permanence  and  he  emphasized  only  the 
principle  of  identity  in  the  explanation  of  all  things,  that  is,  the 
principle  of  material  cause,  though  he  resorted  to  efficient  causes  at 
one  or  two  points  without  working  out  this  new  principle  even  to 
account  for  the  fact  of  change,  which  was  the  one  that  ought  to  have 
attracted  his  scientific  and  philosophic  interest.  His  primary  method, 
the  application  of  the  principle  of  identity,  which  he  understood  better 
than  any  other  principle  of  philosophy,  was  that  of  observing  the 
actual  unity  of  things  in  which  he  found  a  hierarchy  of  types  reducible 
to  logical  classification.  He  saw  that  objects  could  be  classified  by 
their  properties  into  genera  and  species,  and  these  reduced  to  the 
summum  genus  and  the  infima  species.  The  former  was  repre- 
sented by  ''''being"  or  the  universal,  which  was  regarded  as  "one,"  a 
conception  which  did  not  distinguish  between  mathematical  unity  or 
singleness  and  logical  identity  or  similarity  of  kind  which  involved 
mathematical  plurality  of  individuals.  The  latter  were  the  individuals 
that  made  up  the  real  objects  of  the  sensible  world,  these  being  con- 
ceived in  an  equivocal  manner,  now  as  constituted  by  a  synthesis  of 
conferential  and  differential,  or  universal  and  accidental  qualities,  and 
now  as  a  differential  accident,  a  "  phenomenal"  change,  attached  to  a 
permanent  supersensible  reality,  evidentially  indicated  by  its  identical 
modes  in  the  transmutations  of  species.     Of  this  again.     The  "ideas" 


422  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  "  forms"  were  the  common  properties,  the  conferential  or  universal 
qualities  of  things,  and  the  differential  constituted  the  individual  or  par- 
ticular qualities.  But  his  chief  interest  lay  in  the  common  or  universal 
qualities  which  he  could  describe  as  the  "  essence"  of  reality  on  the 
assumption  that  they  represented  the  perdurable  in  the  cosmic  evolution, 
that  is,  the  identical  element  in  change  while  that  which  changed  was 
individual  and  transient.  He  supposed  that  the  "  ideas  "  or  universal 
qualities  were  all  evolved  from  an  ultimate  reality,  being,  which  stood 
as  the  one  reality  or  "  substance  "  capable  of  giving  rise  materially  to  all 
that  was  found  in  the  individuals  except  the  evanescent,  that  is,  the 
conferential  qualities  which  showed  a  perdurable  "  essence "  making 
them  the  same  in  kind  either  coexistently  in  space  or  successively  in  time. 
Thus,  to  take  an  illustration,  elms  and  oaks  are  each  a  species  of  tree. 
Elms  and  oaks  have  certain  differential  properties  which  do  not  belong 
to  all  trees  and  which  distinguish  each  from  the  other.  In  fact,  we 
might  say  that  the  real  meaning  of  the  terms  is  the  differences  which 
make  the  term  tree  incapable  of  indicating  all  that  is  meant  by  either 
term.  These  differentiae  are  the  individual,  transient,  or  accidental 
qualities,  in  Platonic  parlance,  which,  if  the  case  is  an  individual  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  can  never  be  repeated.  But  the  common 
properties  which  are  expressed  by  the  term  tree  do  not  represent 
for  Plato  merely  a  quality  of  the  species  but  also  the  material  which 
existed  and  may  exist  independently  of  the  species  or  individual  in 
which  they  are  found.  It  does  not  mean  that  there  is  an  independent 
individual  tree,  apart  from  oaks  and  elms,  which  forms  their  character, 
but  a  material  which  is  drawn  upon  and  is  permanently  of  the  kind  to 
determine  their  similarity  and  unity.  Here  is  found  Plato's  close 
affiliation  with  the  atomic  doctrine  which  was  only  another  form  of 
the  general  Greek  conception  that  all  things  were  formed  out  of 
"stuff"  or  material  causes.  The  universal  properties  were  from 
eternal  "  stuff,"  the  accidental  properties  from  transient  material. 
We  should  say  that  "  tree"  is  an  abstract  term  not  representing  any 
other  reality  than  a  modal  one,  a  quality  of  the  individual  subject  or 
organism  in  which  it  appeared.  But  Plato  seeing  that  there  was  a 
resemblance  in  kind  between  coexistent  and  sequent  species  and 
individuals  sought  a  material  cause  for  this  identity  and  persistent 
fact,  and  not  using  efficient  causes  to  account  for  any  thing  like  a 
quality  and  not  being  able  to  explain  the  contingent  and  evanescent 
"phenomena"  materially,  had  to  treat  them  as  transient.  But  the 
universal  qualities  were  constituted  out  of  preexistent  and  post- 
existential  material,  in  which  they  participated  as  a  "  substance  "  or 


SPIRITUALISM.  423 

"  essence  "  out  of  which  they  were  made.  They  are  supersensible  reali- 
ties, though  there  is  sensible  evidence  of  them.  But  here  Plato  meets 
a  fundamental  difficulty.  He  has  to  recognize  the  evidence  in  the 
sensible  for  that  which  is  supposed  to  survive  the  sensible,  and  when 
this  evidence  is  produced  it  is  the  identity  in  kind  of  the  two  sensible 
individuals,  and  this  identity  is  the  basis  of  what  persists  through  the 
changes  or  transmutations  of  species,  so  that  after  all  some  sort  of 
identity  between  the  sensible  and  the  supersensible  is  assumed,  and 
this  apparently  contradicts  the  assumption  of  an  antithesis  between 
them.  This  would  explain  Aristotle's  accusation  against  the  Platonic 
"  ideas"  that  they  simply  "  eternalized  the  things  of  sense"  when  they 
should  have  recognized  the  antithesis  which  the  main  principle  of  his 
philosophy  represented.  Aristotle  clarified  the  matter  by  frankly  rep- 
resenting the  "  ideas"  or  "forms"  as  sensible  properties  along  with 
the  Platonic  "matter"  or  contingent  and  differential  qualities,  and  by 
extending  the  term  "  matter  "  to  express  the  supersensible  reality  or  sub- 
stance whose  evolution  produced  both  the  transient  and  the  permanent, 
or  the  accidental  and  universal  qualities,  the  difference  between  the 
two  being  one  of  relative  permanence  or  relative  transiency.  Plato 
seems  to  have  been  governed  by  assumptions  analogous  to  that  of 
Anaxagoras  whose  homoiomeriae,  supersensible  realities  or  atoms, 
represented  the  material  source  from  which  the  qualities  of  the  sensi- 
ble world  were  drawn.,  The  qualitative  identities  and  differences 
were  due  to  the  fact  that  the  respective  qualities  were  found  in  the 
original  elements  forming  the  composition,  and  variations  in  the 
totalities  were  due  to  variations  in  the  numerical  character  of  the 
units  composing  the  wholes.  But  Plato  abandoned  the  conception  of 
a  union  of  this  kind  while  he  retained  the  idea  that  the  identity  of  kind 
in  the  sensible  world  was  deducible  from  an  identity  or  persistence  of 
the  same  material  in  the  supersensible  world.  In  other  words  he  sub- 
stituted transition  from  the  supersensible  to  the  sensible  for  elemental 
composition  and  holds  to  an  identity  in  the  process  in  spite  of  the  fact 
of  change.  Plato  considered  that  this  substance  which  gave  unity  and 
permanence  to  reality  was  more  essential  than  other  things  and  hence 
he  had  a  ground  for  a  kind  of  unity  which  was  not  so  apparent  in  the 
conception  of  Anaxagoras  who  explained  the  order  of  the  cosmos  by 
his  efficient  cause  and  its  variety  by  the  qualitative  differences  of  the 
elements,  these  being  a  material  cause.  But  while  he  also  had  a  ma- 
terial cause  for  all  the  qualitative  characteristics  of  the  sensible  world, 
he  had  no  principle  which  exhibited  the  kind  of  unity  and  identity 
which  so  fascinated  the  mind  of  Plato.     With  Anaxagoras  the  unity 


4^4  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

was  rather  teleological  than  ontological,  and  hence  material  causes 
were  incidental  to  the  efficient.  With  Plato  the  ontological  cause  was 
the  most  important  and  the  efficient  in  the  end  identified  with  it.  Now 
the  "  ideas  "  of  Plato  supplied  the  want  and  served  as  both  the  efficient 
and  the  material  cause  for  things,  thus  bringing  Plato  into  close  har- 
mony with  the  atomists  in  his  exclusion  of  a  deus  ex  machina  from 
his  system. 

But  it  is  precisely  this  failure  to  distinguish  adequately  or  con- 
sciously between  efficient  and  material  causes  that  creates  the  trouble  in 
his  system  when  it  comes  to  dealing  with  the  problem  of  immortality, 
or  the  permanence  of  any  fact  conceived  as  a  property  of  things,  as 
known.  The  "phenomenal"  required  a  cause  and  could  not  have  a 
"  material"  cause  or  "  idea"  and  ought  to  have  had  an  efficient  cause 
to  make  its  appearance  intelligible,  while  the  permanent  involved  no 
distinction  between  the  two  kinds  of  causes  and  implied  no  essential 
change  in  its  manifold  forms,  though  we  sometimes  suspect  a  fluctuat- 
ing conception  now  of  identity  and  now  of  antithesis  between  the 
supersensible  and  the  sensible  condition  of  the  "ideas"  or  material 
causes  of  the  "  individual  "  realities.  The  inconsistency  here  and  the 
failure  to  account  for  the  "individual"  or  "phenomenal"  reality  by 
material  causes  suggests  the  possibility  of  either  seeking  a  material  cause 
for  this  or  demanding  that  the  universal  shall  have  an  efficient  cause 
which  might  indicate  an  antithesis  between  it  and  its  subject  as  was 
that  between  the  "  phenomenal "  and  the  reality  of  which  it  was  an 
effect.  But  Plato  took  the  former  alternative,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
and  thus  showed  clearly  the  logical  tendency  of  his  system.  This  was 
the  conception  of  metamorphosis  which  assumes  a  change  of  modal 
action  on  the  part  of  the  real  rather  than  the  persistence  of  the  condi- 
tion or  subject  in  change.  With  Plato  the  subject  disappeared  while 
the  attribute  remained  without  retaining  any  identity  of  an  individual 
kind.  Its  identity  was  general  and  abstract.  His  process  of  evolution 
involved  a  metamorphosis  of  reality  into  "  phenomenal "  forms  and 
the  identity  was  that  of  resemblance  in  these  forms  from  generation  to 
generation,  so  that  the  permanence  was  not  that  of  the  individual  but 
of  the  type  or  race.  He  might  consider  consciousness  as  an  "  idea" 
or  universal  and  secure  its  immortality,  but  this  immortality  was  not 
and  would  not  be  of  the  individual  consciousness  as  later  conceived, 
but  would  only  be  that  of  the  persistence  of  type  or  of  the  supersensible 
reality  which  metamorphosed  itself  into  the  ephemeral  forms.  His 
conception  would  be  somewhat  like  T.  H.  Green's  "  eternal  con- 
sciousness," which,  when  it  was  defined,  had  to  be  described  in  terms 


SPIRITUALISM.  425 

that  were  the  negative  of  the  individual  consciousness  !  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  conception  of  metamorphosis  involved  in  the  passage  from 
the  supersensible  to  the  sensible  form  of  reality,  even  when  he  was 
dealing  with  universals,  the  notion  of  identity  might  have  been  differ- 
ent from  what  it  actually  was.  But  Plato  was  unconsciously  playing 
a  double  game  with  his  universals,  the  common  properties  of  things. 
On  the  one  hand,  they  were  contrasted  with  the  individual  or  differen- 
tial properties  which  were  accidental  and  evanescent,  and  so  were  the 
perdurable  facts  of  existence,  and,  on  the  other,  they  appeared  as  sensi- 
ble properties  quite  similar  to  each  other  in  relation  to  the  complex 
wholes  in  which  they  were  found,  the  idea  of  metamorphosis  being 
used  to  suggest  their  continuance  in  change  while  that  idea  was  not 
used  to  explain  the  "  phenomenal,"  except  as  will  be  shown  presently. 
Thus  the  opposition  between  the  individual  and  the  universal,  the 
differential  and  the  conferential,  was  not  made  complete,  but  kept  in 
that  confusing  condition  which  is  shown  in  modern  logic  in  the  use  of 
the  terms  "genus"  and  "species,"  on  the  one  hand,  and  "genus" 
and  "differentia,"  on  the  other.  In  one  of  the  pairs,  "genus" 
includes  the  other,  "  species,"  and  in  the  second,  it  excludes  the  other, 
"  differentia."  Now  as  "  differentia  "  is  included  in  the  species  as  its 
essential  characteristic,  we  have  the  apparent  contradiction  that  the 
"  genus  "  simultaneously  includes  and  excludes  the  "  differentia."  The 
illusion  is  explained  easily  by  showing  that  in  one  case  "  genus  "  repre- 
sents the  concept  extensively,  in  which  the  "species"  is  numerically 
or  quantitatively  contained  in  the  class,  and  in  the  other  represents  the 
concept  intensively,  in  which  the  "differentia"  is  excluded  quali- 
tatively from  the  conferentia.  Now  Plato's  "  ideas "  or  universals 
fluctuated  between  two  conceptions  of  them,  now  including  the  sensi- 
ble properties  which  shared,  "  participated,"  in  the  reality  which  was 
metamorphosed  in  the  process  of  evolution,  and  now  excluding  the 
sensible  properties  which  were  evanescent  and  did  not  ' '  participate  " 
in  the  permanent.  In  other  words,  the  universals  were  now  con- 
ceived as  sensible  properties  of  the  individual  on  a  par  with  the  differ- 
entiae as  properties,  and  now  as  the  permanent  realities  which  survived 
the  disappearance  of  the  sensible  forms  without  retaining  any  of  the 
identity  observable  in  sense  except  as  this  reappeared  in  subsequent 
forms  of  the  process  of  metamorphosis.  Consequently,  when  Plato 
conceived  any  "idea"  as  a  universal  property  he  represented  it,  not 
as  a  permanent  thing  for  the  individual  in  which  it  appeared  for  the 
time  and  which  was  ephemeral,  but  as  a  permanent  substance  from 
which  this  material  quality  could  be  drawn  for  other  individuals  in 


426  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

space  and  time  and  which  had  to  change  its  form  in  the  process  of 
evolution,  while  the  sensible  qualities  appearing  as  conferential  could 
only  "  participate  "  in  this  permanent  and  hence  no  individual  manifes- 
tation of  it  exhausted  its  nature.  When  applied  to  consciousness  this 
conception  of  persistence  could  only  mean  the  persistence  of  the  gen- 
eral or  abstract  consciousness  for  the  race,  and  not  the  persistence  of 
what  we  mean  by  the  individual  consciousness,  or  personal  identity. 

There  is  another  way  to  reach  the  same  conclusion  and  this  is 
through  his  conception  of  "matter,"  which  we  have  seen  represents 
the  transient  or  ephemeral  as  embodied  in  the  sensible  world.  The 
sensible  world  was  the  metamorphosis  of  the  supersensible,  the  "ap- 
pearance "  of  the  transcendental  or  transphenomenal  in  forms  which 
simply  "participated"  in  reality.  Now  in  his  determination  of  the 
unity  and  identity  of  things  about  him  by  his  logical  classification, 
Plato  was  confronted  by  the  fact  of  variety  and  difference  quite  as 
emphatic  and  significant  as  the  unity  and  harmony  of  the  world. 
This  is  the  crux  of  his  system,  and  unless  he  can  solve  this  he  has  a 
dualism  that  contradicts  the  evident  monistic  sympathies  of  his  general 
thought.  For  everything  else  he  had  a  material  cause,  a  permanent 
identical  reality  which  survived  all  change.  But  this  transient  world 
of  sense  disappeared  and  apparently  had  no  material  cause  to  explain 
its  existence,  but  only  a  latent  and  undeveloped  recognition  of  efficient 
cause  which  had  no  permanence.  But  the  fact  is  that  Plato  gave  as 
clear  an  explanation  of  difference  as  of  identity,  though  he  did  it  as  a 
sort  of  after  thought  and  without  any  specific  recognition  of  efficient 
cause  as  distinct  from  material  causes.  All  scholars  will  remark  that, 
when  pushed  to  account  for  "matter,"  variety,  difference,  or  "phe- 
nomenal "  change  on  the  basis  of  his  principle,  Plato  finally  asserted 
that  "matter"  had  an  "idea"  of  its  own.  This  conclusion  involved 
an  irresolvable  dualism  in  his  system  opposed  to  its  monism,  but  it 
was  the  only  course  that  he  could  take  without  admitting  efficient 
causes  as  distinct  from  the  material.  But  this  admission  of  a  material 
cause,  or  "  idea"  of  its  own,  for  "  matter"  or  difference  and  variety 
in  nature,  assumed  something  indefinite  or  even  infinite  in  quantity  at 
the  basis  of  "  phenomenal  "  reality,  while  the  supreme  "  idea,"  being, 
which  lay  at  the  basis  of  all  unity  and  identity  was  one.  The  contra- 
diction in  his  system  is  thus  quite  apparent.  But  it  is  not  a  contradic- 
tion on  the  ground  that  it  is  an  explanation  of  "  matter  "  by  a  material 
cause,  but  because  it  is  an  admission  of  an  eternal  principle  at  the 
basis  of  change.  In  its  application  of  the  principle  of  material  caus- 
ality, even  to  "  phenomena,"  it  was  consistent  enough,  but  the  incon- 


SPIRITUALISM.  427 

sistency  lay  in  the  recognition  of  an  eternal  or  permanent  where  his 
original  conception  excluded  it.  The  original  antithesis  between  the 
transient  and  the  permanent,  the  u  phenomenal "  and  the  "  noumenal," 
"matter"  and  "idea,"  implied  that  the  former  had  no  substantive 
basis,  and  that  the  only  permanent  reality  was  that  which  constituted 
the  universal  qualities  in  changing  individuals,  while  he  was  left  to 
explain  difference  or  "phenomenal"  change  either  as  the  atomists 
did,  namely,  as  the  contingent  effect  of  a  union  of  elements,  no  matter 
what  conception  of  the  elements  was  maintained,  or  as  a  sort  of  epi- 
phenomenon  attached  to  the  main  current  of  the  evolutionary  process. 
But  having  set  up  a  permanent  basis  for  the  "  phenomenal "  as  well  as 
the  universal  properties  of  things,  he  simply  had  to  choose  between  an 
unintelligible  dualism  and  a  monism  which  treated  both  the  confer- 
ential  and  the  differential  facts  of  existence  as  functions  of  the  indi- 
vidual, both  of  them  as  modes  which  permitted  the  disappearance  of  the 
form  while  the  substance  remained  persistent.  As  he  admitted  meta- 
morphosis for  the  universal  properties  and  this  doctrine  of  an  "  idea" 
or  substantive  material  cause  at  the  basis  of  ' '  phenomena  "  permits  the 
same  conception  to  be  applied  to  differences,  the  only  way  to  get  any 
unity  in  the  system  is  to  assume  that  the  only  real  difference  between 
"  matter  "  and  "  ideas,"  or  between  the  "  phenomenal  "  and  the  perma- 
nent, is  the  possibility  of  reappearance  or  repetition  in  the  one  and 
the  impossibility  of  the  appearance  of  the  other,  a  position  which  could 
only  be  proved  by  the  facts  and  not  by  any  principle  of  the  system. 
When  difference  and  change  had  an  eternal  principle  which  was  not 
identical  either  with  the  permanent  or  with  the  individual  as  a  whole, 
there  was  only  one  course  open  to  secure  unity  in  the  system  and  that 
was  the  course  taken  by  Aristotle,  who  assumed  that  both  the  tran- 
sient and  the  permanent  were  modes  of  substance,  which  he  conceived 
as  monistic,  while  the  atomists  assumed  the  same  relation  between 
attributes  while  they  substituted  pluralism  for  dualism,  Plato  tending 
toward  the  latter  by  virtue  of  his  "idea"  for  difference.  But  the 
moment  that  he  suggested  an  eternal  principle  for  change  and  admitted 
metamorphosis  or  "  phenomenal "  change  for  sensible  universals  he 
exhibited  in  all  its  clearness  the  fact  that  there  was  no  material  dif- 
ference between  the  transient  and  the  permanent  and  the  identity  so 
strongly  affirmed  of  the  permanent  in  its  transmutations  was  not  that 
of  the  individual  but  only  of  the  genus.  As  applied  to  consciousness 
or  the  soul  this  only  meant  the  immutability  of  the  type,  and  not  of 
personal  identity. 

This  conclusion  is  again  reinforced  logically  when  we  come  to  con- 


428  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sider  that  in  the  Platonic  system  all  intermediate  species  between  the 
summum  genus  and  the  injima  species  had  to  be  distinguished  by 
properties  that  were  relatively  either  differentiae  or  conferentias,  as  we 
please.  As  differentiae  they  had  no  absolute  permanence,  and  they  were 
conferentiae  only  for  the  species  in  which  they  were  found  while  they 
were  differentiae  for  the  genus  or  higher  species.  The  consequence  was 
that  the  system  had  to  be  tested  by  the  conceptions  at  the  basis  of  the 
two  extremes,  the  summum  genus  and  the  injima  species,  the  former 
representing  being,  or  one  universal,  and  the  latter  individuals,  or 
many.  This  involved  the  supposition  that  all  individuals  were  the 
metamorphosed  types  of  the  one  ultimate  reality,  the  emergence  in  the 
sensible  of  one  supersensible  reality,  the  differences  and  "  phenomenal  " 
modes  predominating  numerically  over  the  permanent.  In  this  every- 
thing but  the  one  became  evanescent.  To  this  only  one  predicate  was 
applicable,  and  that  was  "  being"  or  existence,  and  as  the  individual 
was  wholly  sensible,  in  spite  of  its  relative  universals,  nothing  in  it 
survived  but  substance.  All  its  modes  were  changeable,  though  there 
were  relative  degrees  of  permanence  between  them. 

In  this  opposition  between  "the  one"  and  "the  many"  it  was 
only  a  question  as  to  which  of  the  two  should  be  declared  substance  and 
which  mode.  The  atomists  seized  upon  multiplicity  to  assert  that  it 
was  this  which  was  permanent  and  substantial,  making  the  atom  the 
conception  of  individuality,  and  that  the  universal  was  a  modal  quality 
of  things,  transient  in  composite  forms  and  permanent  in  elementary 
realities  where  it  was  not  a  resultant  of  composition.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Neo-Platonists  seized  upon  unity  to  declare  that  only  the 
absolute  or  one  universal  was  eternal  and  the  individual,  a  modal 
change  in  it,  was  transient  and  evanescent.  Thus  Plato's  complicated 
system  was  capable  of  development  into  two  opposite  schools  in  neither 
of  which  was  consciousness  a  permanent  fact.  In  both  nothing  but 
the  substance  of  the  "  soul "  was  permanent,  and  at  no  point  was  the 
universal  and  the  individual  united  in  a  way  to  preserve  the  permanence 
of  the  latter  with  the  permanence  of  the  former,  until  the  individual 
was  made  a  simple  being  instead  of  composite,  and  "phenomenal" 
change  denied  of  it,  except  as  modal  action.  The  atomists  assumed 
that  weight  and  motion  were  the  universal  and  permanent  properties 
of  their  elementary  substances,  and  made  consciousness  a  contingent 
and  accidental  property  of  composition,  so  that  it  was  evanescent. 
Any  system  which  showed  that  consciousness  was  not  a  resultant  of 
organization,  whatever  might  be  said  about  atoms,  prepared  the  way 
to  dispute  the  inference  which  atomism  draws  regarding  consciousness 


SPIRITUALISM.  429 

and  its  disappearance  with  the  body.  We  shall  meet  with  this  con- 
ception of  the  case  later  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  philosophic  prob- 
lem. But  Plato  could  not  propose  it  with  his  doctrine  of  metamorpho- 
sis which  applied  equally  to  the  transient  and  the  permanent,  whether 
he  was  dualistic  or  monistic,  and  which  allowed  no  individual  identity 
for  universal  modes  and  no  universal  identity  in  modal  changes. 

But  side  by  side  with  Plato's  doctrine  of  metamorphosis  existed 
another  conception  which  was  not  exactly  consonant  with  it  and  which 
tended  toward  a  different  philosophic  system.  This  reappearance  in 
other  successive  individuals  of  the  same  kind  of  properties  as  were 
noticed  in  their  antecedent  individuals  suggests  a  point  of  view  quite 
different  from  that  of  simple  metamorphosis.  In  the  first  place,  he 
needed  to  distinguish  between  the  spatial  and  the  temporal  "univer- 
sal." The  spatial  "universal"  was  similar  qualities  in  coexistent 
species,  and  so  represented  in  their  substantive  source  different  parts 
of  the  same  whole.  The  temporal  "  universal"  was  similar  qualities 
in  successive  species,  but  represented  the  same  part  of  the  same  whole 
in  different  stages  of  its  evolution.  If  the  temporal  "  universal"  had 
represented  different  parts  of  the  same  whole  appearing  at  different 
moments  of  time,  even  though  they  were  similar  in  kind,  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  individual  would  have  been  no  mystery  and  there 
would  have  been  no  reason  to  suppose  the  continuance  of  even  the 
universal  by  any  form  of  transmission  to  successive  individuals  of  the 
material  which  had  constituted  their  antecedents,  but  only  the  appear- 
ance of  "phenomena"  similar  to  the  past  process  of  evolution.  Now 
Plato  assumed  this  latter  conception  of  the  case  while  he  assumed  the 
former  idea  of  the  temporal  "  universal."  He  had  a  chance  to  main- 
tain the  persistence  of  personal  identity  by  supposing  that  the  trans- 
mitted property  from  one  individual  in  time  to  another  was  the  same  as 
in  the  antecedent,  and  hence  to  maintain  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis 
in  a  form  similar  to  a  theory  of  resurrection,  allowing  identity  of  modal 
action  with  change  of  embodiment,  as  in  the  transmission  of  motion. 
The  atomists  might  have  done  this  if  they  had  admitted  that  conscious- 
ness was  a  function  of  the  elements  and  not  a  resultant  of  composition, 
as  we  find  some  of  the  modern  atomists  actually  forced  by  their  logic 
to  do.  But  they  and  Plato  were  near  enough  together  in  their  con- 
ceptions of  the  case  to  make  consciousness  an  accident  of  composition 
while  its  identity  in  different  species  was  logical  and  not  real.  With 
Plato  the  transmission  of  the  permanent  from  individual  to  individual 
was  too  closely  affiliated  with  the  conception  of  metamorphosis  at  the 
same  time  to  enable  him  to  see  how  he  might  have  advocated  a  doc- 


43°  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

trine  of  immortality  which  would  not  be  subject  to  the  objection  that 
it  involved  nothing  more  than  the  immutability  of  species.  He  simply 
combined  the  conceptions  of  metamorphosis  and  transmission  in  a  way 
to  obtain  change  at  the  expense  of  identity  and  identity  at  the  expense 
of  individual  permanence  where  that  individual  was  not  the  absolute. 
It  is  possible  to  unite  transmission  and  metamorphosis  in  a  way  to 
admit  a  function  for  both,  as  modern  atomism  does,  but  Plato  allowed 
the  transmission  and  metamorphosis  to  be  simultaneously  applied  to 
the  "  universal "  when  his  doctrine  of  transmigration  required  him  to 
apply  transmission  to  the  "universal"  and  metamorphosis  to  the 
"individual."  But  as  his  ultimate  principle  was  both  "  universal " 
and  "  individual,"  that  is,  permanent  substance  and  mathematically 
one,  this  unity  of  the  "universal"  and  the  "  individual"  was  not  the 
same  as  that  system  which  made  the  individual  a  substance  and  the 
"  universal  "  a  quality  of  it.  Consequently,  while  one  conception  of 
Plato  might  imply  the  continuance  of  certain  properties  beyond  the 
moment  of  the  present,  the  other  denied  it,  and  Plato  chose  the  alter- 
native which  led  directly  to  the  denial  of  personal  identity  in  the  trans- 
mutation of  reality  while  an  abstract  identity  remained. 

Had  Plato's  "  idea  "  been  less  abstract,'  less  elastic  and  equivocal,  so 
many  tendencies  in  his  system  would  not  have  shown  themselves. 
But  a  term  which  did  duty  for  abstract  general  concepts  which  had  no 
corresponding  individual  reality ;  for  the  qualities  of  "phenomenal" 
reality  which  were  mere  simulacra  of  absolute  reality ;  for  the  super- 
sensible material  out  of  which  the  essential  qualities  of  things  were 
made  and  which  was  not  "  phenomenal"  at  all;  for  the  formative  or 
active  principle  of  things  as  well  as  the  material ;  and  for  the  terminus 
a  quo  or  end  of  either  things  or  conduct,  the  telos  toward  which  evo- 
lution moved  —  such  a  conception  was  well  qualified  to  give  rise  to  as 
many  systems  of  metaphysics  as  there  are  distinctions  necessary  to 
make  its  import  consistent  and  useful.  This,  of  course,  was  what 
subsequent  philosophy  did  in  various  ways.  Aristotle  simply  extended 
to  the  supersensible  the  concept  of  "  matter,"  which  even  in  Plato,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  to  have  an  eternal  principle,  and  accepting  evolu- 
tionary metamorphosis  as  the  process  of  change,  and  the  modal  char- 
acter of  universal  properties,  considered  individual  wholes  as  the 
"  forms  "  of  this  ultimate  reality  in  its  activities.  The  material  cause 
was  not  the  "  ideas  "  but  the  "  matter,"  the  indefinite  substance  whose 
modes  constituted  the  forms  of  things  as  we  perceive  them  in  sensible 
experience,  these  latter  being  the  transient  and  the  former  the  per- 
manent   fact    of    reality.      The  conception  was  not  clearly  applied  or 


SPIRJ  T UAL  ISM.  43 1 

developed  in  connection  with  such  problems  as  the  soul,  though  the 
rational  element  of  this  was  said  to  be  imperishable.  What  this 
meant  no  one  knows.  All  that  is  clear  is  that  Aristotle  had  no  definite 
tendencies  toward  the  atomic  doctrine  in  its  conception  of  plural  abso- 
lutes, though  his  conception  of  universals  prepared  the  way  for  the 
treatment  of  them  as  ephemeral,  just  as  in  the  atomic  theory.  But 
there  was  an  indefinite  or  latent  suggestion  of  an  atomic  doctrine  in 
his  system  in  that  the  matter  or  indefinite  reality  which  constituted  the 
material  cause  of  the  sensible  world  depended  upon  some  efficient 
cause  to  effect  its  initiation  in  cosmic  evolution  and  systematic  arrange- 
ment, so  that  this  -primum  mobile  as  a  cause  outside  the  reality,  which 
it  moved,  started  the  speculative  impulse  away  from  the  idearo_ 
evolutionary  metamorphosis  toward  that  of  evolutionary  composition,  or 
the  synthesis  of  multiform  elements  instead  of  modal  manifestations 
of  a  single  absolute,  and  atomic  theories  are  the  immediate  consequence, 
especially  that  the  primu?n  mobile  is  not  necessary  to  sustain  the  pro- 
cess once  initiated.  Plato's  view  of  "  one  and  the  many"  led  equally 
to  Epicurean  atomism,  Neo-Platonic  pantheism  and  Christian  theism.* 
Taking  the  Anaxagorean  conception  he  could  have  a  single  principle 
that  ordered  a  cosmos  of  elements  that  were  permanent,  a  point  of  view 
at  least  partly  reproduced  in  Aristotle's  primu?n  7nobile  and  the  sen- 
sible world.  Then  assuming  that  the  "one"  was  the  only  eternal 
principle  he  could  make  the  "many"  its  transient  and  ephemeral 
modes,  as  in  Neo-Platonism.  Closely  related  to  this  and  yet  uniting 
in  it  some  of  the  elements  of  the  atomic  theory  we  could  have  the 
Christian's  God  as  creator  of  the  "  many,"  whether  atoms  or  functional 
modes,  a  conception  combining  more  or  less  of  the  Anaxagorean, 
Aristotelian,  and  Epicurean  principles.  The  persistence  of  conscious- 
ness could  be  obtained  either  as  a  conditional  resultant  of  the  divine 
will  or  as  the  natural  consequence  of  an  order  once  established  by  that 
will,  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  inertia. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  various  tendencies  after  Plato  to  show  the 
indeterminate  nature  of  his  fundamental  conceptions  and  to  indicate 
that  those  who  were  nearest  him  were  less  likely  to  misunderstand  his 
conceptions  than  those  who  had  adopted  a  philosophy  of  the  soul  and 
its  immortality  upon  different  grounds,  and  who  were  likely  to  appro- 
priate facts  and  affirmative  language  wherever  the  influence  of  author- 
ity could  be  utilized  without  troubling  themselves  to  interpret  it 
according  to  conceptions  actually  at  variance  with  their  way  of  think- 
ing about  the  cosmos.  That  is,  the  historical  setting  of  the  Platonic 
problem  and  the  nature  of  his  arguments  and  conception  of  the  soul 


43 2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

are  easily  misunderstood  by  all  who  do  not  interpret  them  by  the  gen- 
eral spirit  and  conceptions  of  Greek  philosophy  instead  of  the  very 
different  points  of  view  accepted  in  a  later  period.  The  practical 
evasion  of  the  problem  by  Aristotle,  the  obscurity  of  the  Stoic  view, 
and  the  denial  of  immortality  by  the  Epicureans  show  that  Plato's 
position  had  not  affected  conceptions  and  convictions  to  any  extent, 
except  we  suppose  that  successors  understood  it. to  mean  what  it  did 
mean,  namely,  a  doctrine  something  like  our  doctrine  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy. 

I  shall  not  deny  the  existence  in  Plato  of  "  momenta  "  looking  toward 
the  very  doctrine  which  is  not  logically  deducible  from  the  conceptions 
which  philosophers  have  agreed  to  regard  as  more  fundamental  in  the 
system  than  those  which  either  suggest  or  sustain  the  Christian  theory. 
The  description  of  the  joys  and  perfections  belonging  to  an  existence 
independent  of  the  body,  the  consequences  of  vice  and  the  rewards  of 
virtue,  and  all  those  various  conceptions  of  ethics  which  represented 
moral  conduct  as  pointing  to  a  future  existence  for  which  the  present 
was  conceived  as  a  probation,  quite  as  definitely  as  Christian  thought, 
are  characteristics  which  make  it  almost  impossible  for  a  layman  to 
distinguish  between  Plato  and  Christianity  in  these  respects,  and  it  is 
quite  possible  also  that  Plato  did  not  realize  the  inconsequence  of  his 
conceptions  and  arguments  for  a  view  actually  held  but  not  supportable 
by  his  philosophy.  But  it  was  certainly  natural  for  the  early  church 
to  make  an  exception  of  Plato  in  the  common  fate  which  was  assigned 
to  the  pagan  world.  We  forget  two  things,  however,  in  our  enthusiasm 
and  applause  for  the  orthodoxy  of  Plato.  There  is  first  the  fact  that  he 
does  not  look  upon  the  ethics  of  the  incarnate  life  as  in  any  way  differ- 
ent from  that  which  is  supposed  to  prepare  for  the  future.  He  would 
not  distinguish  between  morality  and  religion.  He  was  not  disposed 
to  regulate  the  present  life  by  any  definite  conception  of  the  hereafter, 
but  solely  by  the  demands  of  the  present  existence  for  the  highest  cul- 
ture. He  loved  life  and  nature,  as  the  Christian  despised  them.  He 
was  no  despiser  of  art  and  social  life,  no  ascetic  beyond  the  demands 
of  temperance,  and  self-control.  His  ethics  and  religion,  whatever 
place  they  have  in  preparation  for  another  existence,  are  essentially 
terrestrial  and  do  not  savor  of  imaginary  ideals  in  some  transcendental 
world  not  intelligible  to  us.  They  keep  the  eye  of  conscience  on  the 
present  life,  though  they  do  not  refuse  another,  and  grant  this  other 
life  as  a  natural  consequence  of  the  present.  But  above  all  we  forget 
the  second  fact  that  this  other  life  was  conceived  as  a  reincarnation,  a 
transmigration   of  the  soul  into  another  embodiment,   while  he  also 


SPIRITUALISM.  433 

extends  this  doctrine  of  reincarnation  to  the  interpretation  of  the  present 
bodily  existence.  He  does  not  hold  that  the  soul  is  permanent  or 
immortal  by  virtue  of  the  will  of-  a  creator,  but  that  it  is  naturally 
immortal,  in  the  past  as  well  as  the  future.  He  accepts  its  eternity 
in  both  directions.  He  would  not  admit  a  future  life  for  any  created 
"thing.  Christianity  was  forced  to  construct  its  conception  of  the  case 
by  its  doctrine  of  the  created  nature  of  the  body  and  soul.  Having 
admitted  that  they  were  creations  it  had  to  shape  its  philosophy  so  that 
the  soul  should  not  perish,  and  it  took  two  directions  in  this.  The 
first  was  what  is  called  conditional  immortality,  depending  solely  upon 
the  will  of  the  creator  in  accordance  with  the  character  of  the  individ- 
ual's conduct.  The  second  was  accepted  upon  the  Aristotelian  con- 
ception of  creation,  which  was  that  an  act  of  initiation  was  necessary 
to  account  for  the  existing  order  and  that  after  this  its  course  was 
natural,  and  this  position  was  supported  by  the  doctrine  of  inertia. 
But  Plato  assumed  that  whatever  had  a  beginning  would  have  an  end 
and  thus  agreed  with  the  materialists.  All  composites  were  perishable 
and  ephemeral.  Plato  could  understand  immortality  only  on  the  con- 
dition that  it  applied  to  the  past  as  well  as  the  future.  But  right  at 
this  point  arises  the  crux  of  his  whole  doctrine  on  this  question.  He 
admitted  that  there  was  no  conscious  memory  of  this  past,  and  it  was 
evidently  the  unanswerable  cogency  of  this  fact  which  forced  Christian- 
ity to  reconcile  its  conception  of  survival  with  the  acceptance  of  an 
origin  for  the  soul.  But  as  Plato  could  not  affirm  a  consciousness  of  a 
past  incarnation  he  had  to  assume  that  the  same  was  true  of  future 
reincarnations,  and  in  this  way  his  doctrine  denied  a  personal  immor- 
tality in  quite  as  effective  a  manner  as  his  theory  of  "  ideas  "  or  uni- 
versal.  The  transmigration  of  the  soul  from  embodiment  to  embodi- 
ment did  not  carry  with  it  that  essential  characteristic  which  would 
give  continuity  to  consciousness,  but  assumed  that  this  function  was  a 
contingent  effect  of  its  incarnation,  a  view  identical  with  that  of  the 
materialists,  except  that  Plato  had  provided  for  the  conservation  of 
energy  as  the  materialist  had  not  done.  It  is  probable  that  Plato 
accepted  personal  immortality  when  he  wrote  the  Apology  under  the 
stress  of  those  powerful  emotions  which  the  admiration  of  all  great 
and  noble  men  must  feel  in  contemplation  of  the  character  and  death 
of  Socrates.  But  when  these  had  cooled  and  his  philosophic  genius 
had  returned  to  the  more  scientific  spirit,  he  came  under  the  influence 
of  the  prevailing  conceptions  of  permanence  and  change  which  made 
substance  eternal  and  its  modes  ephemeral.*  In  spite  of  all  that  is  said, 
therefore,  the  Platonic  conception  of  the  "  soul  "  is  that  of  a  function 


434  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  the  organism,  in  so  far  as  its  differential  essence  is  concerned,  and 
this  is  personal  consciousness  involving  memory  and  unity  of  modal 
persistence.  Unless  this  characteristic  can  survive  with  integrity 
enough  to  have  some  conscious  relation  and  connection  with  its  past 
in  the  material  world  there  is  no  such  "  soul"  and  no  such  immortal- 
ity as  later  speculation  maintained. 

There  was  another  and  singular  feature  of  Plato's  system  which 
pointed  in  his  estimation  toward  the  discovery  of  the  truth  in  regard 
to  nature,  the  truth  that  the  sensible  world  was  not  its  real  and  only 
form.  Plato  recognized  that  it  was  not  the  common  man  that  could 
discover  the  nature  of  things.  It  was  only  the  extraordinary  man,  the 
man  with  special  gifts,  the  seer,  the  prophet,  the  genius,  that  could 
gain  entrance  into  the  secrets  of  the  universe,  or  discover  and  follow 
Ariadne's  thread  out  of  the  labyrinth,  and  in  assigning  these  endow- 
ments to  the  philosopher  Plato  was  not  unmindful  of  the  reputation 
which  that  class  had  with  the  generality  of  mankind.  Greek  history 
laughed  at  Thales  for  falling  into  a  well  while  gazing  at  the  stars  and 
meant  by  this  legend  to  characterize  the  philosophic  class  as  impracti- 
cal cranks.  Plato  could  not  escape  the  consideration  of  a  man  like 
Socrates  in  making  up  the  conditions  of  insight.  Here  was  an  Athen- 
ian bore  and  a  tramp,  out  of  all  harmony  with  the  beauty-loving  Greeks 
in  his  physical  characteristics  and  habits,  pestering  his  neighbors  and 
fellow  citizens  with  questions  and  arguments  on  all  sorts  of  subjects 
and  in  a  way  that  would  induce  our  less  tolerant  civilization  to  arrest 
him  and  send  him  to  the  woodyard,  but  with  a  power  of  insight  and 
dialectic  that  could  confuse  wit  and  humble  pride  as  much  as  it  dis- 
cerned the  truth  without  asserting  it.  Here  Plato  saw  that  the  man 
who  discovered  the  truth  must  be  sufficiently  divested  of  the  prejudices, 
foibles,  fads,  and  follies  of  his  age  to  disregard  them  in  his  estimate  of 
reality,  and  must  permit  himself  to  be  ranked  with  the  castaways  of 
mankind,  if  he  expected  to  escape  the  petrified  traditions  and  illusions 
of  the  common  man.  Hence  Plato  thought  to  find  the  conditions  of 
the  most  far-reaching  insight  in  some  form  of  "  madness"  or  abnormal 
mental  qualifications.  Hence  he  was  disposed  to  classify  genius,  mad- 
ness and  crankism  together,  finding  in  deviation  from  ordinary  illusions 
the  path  to  wisdom.  Plato  knew  that  Socrates  had  consulted  the 
oracle  at  Delphi,  a  phenomenon  probably  much  like  the  consultation 
of  spiritistic  mediums  in  modern  times  and  as  often  a  mixture  of  shrewd 
wit,  delusion,  secondary  personality,  insanity  and  fraud,  with  occasional 
cases  of  supernormal  suggestion,  and  this  knowledge  on  Plato's  part 
might  well  suggest  to  him  the  conception  that  the  truth  of  things  would 


SPIRITUALISM.  435 

be  discovered  in  a  borderland  condition  beyond  the  sensuous  experience 
of  the  multitude.  He  also  knew  that  Socrates  was  governed  by  a 
"  voice"  which  directed  his  actions,  or  rather  abstention  from  action, 
in  certain  instances,  an  abnormal  phenomenon  with  which  modern 
psychology  is  perfectly  familiar  as  automatism,  and  that  it  was  possibly 
the  object  of  Socrates  in  his  consultation  of  the  Delphian  oracle  to  test 
its  pretensions  in  comparison  with  his  own  powers,  so  that  it  was  no 
wonder  that  Plato,  with  encyclopedic  interests  should  turn  a  curious 
attention  to  madness.  Even  Aristotle  admitted  facts  that  suggested 
some  sort  of  supernormal  insight  and  accepted  them  as  deserving  of 
his  scientific  attention.  The  Neo-Platonists  followed  these  examples 
into  magic  and  trance  phenomena,  and  Epicurus  admitted  the  existence 
of  the  gods  on  the  evidence  of  dreams,  and  only  denied  them  a  causal 
influence  on  the  order  of  nature,  assigning  them  as  blissful  an  existence 
in  the  intermundia  as  Aristotle  gave  to  God  outside  the  world  watching 
it  go  and  as  the  Christian  world  gave  to  discarnate  souls  in  a  paradise 
independent  of  material  embodiment  and  complications.  Even  Kant 
paused  long  enough  on  the  threshold  of  this  awful  wilderness  to 
seriously  study  the  phenomena  of  S  wedenborg  and  came  away  from  them 
with  his  distinction  between  "  noumena  "  and  "  phenomena"  and  the 
frank  admission,  after  his  exposition  of  the  antinomies,  that  the  spirit- 
ualist's claims  could  not  be  disproved  by  the  "  phenomena  of  ex- 
perience." But  philosophy  has  never  been  able  to  endure  intellectual 
debauchery  and  whenever  it  could  recover  its  natural  calm  and  feel  the 
necessity  of  controlling  life  by  normal  conceptions,  it  has  sought  to  find 
the  explanation  of  "  phenomena"  in  normal  "  experience"  instead  of 
discrediting  this  for  the  abnormal,  even  though  we  must  ultimately  find 
a  unity  for  both  and  might  discover  in  the  abnormal  wandering  and 
sporadic  facts  that  afford  an  imperfect  glimpse  of  a  cosmos  larger  than 
ordinary  "  experience."  Antiquity  had  no  instruments  for  its  guidance 
in  this  field  and  hence  it  was  well  that  the  saner  philosophic  specula- 
tions, avoiding  its  quicksands  and  quagmires,  confined  its  reflections 
and  ideals  to  normal  life.  At  any  rate,  before  the  scientific  spirit  of 
Aristotle  could  be  developed,  Greek  civilization  was  on  its  way  to  the 
grave,  and  another  and  religious  impulse  revived  speculation  regarding 
the  soul  and  its  destiny,  with  all  the  passions  of  barbarism  in  its  wake 
to  reinforce  its  convictions  and  interests. 

When  Christianity  took  up  the  problem  it  was  not  as  a  subordinate 
part  or  a  corollary  of  a  larger  philosophy  of  the  cosmos,  though  it 
finally  became  this,  but  as  the  conclusion  from  an  alleged  fact.  There 
was  no  dominant  intellectual   movement  of  the  metaphysical  type  in 


43 6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  country  in  which  the  doctrine  of  immortality  was  revived  in  a  new 
form,  but  only  the  aftermaths  of  Greek  culture,  more  particularly  of 
Neo-Platonism  and  Epicureanism.  The  Hebrews  were  preeminently 
an  ethical  and  religious,  and  not  a  philosophical  race,  if  we  may  take 
Greek  thought  as  the  standard  of  measurement.  They  had  neither 
absorbed  with  any  enthusiasm  the  philosophic  ideas  of  their  neighbors 
nor  created  any  of  their  own  having  a  similar  purpose.  There  was 
just  enough  of  Greek  culture  to  divide  such  as  were  willing  to  depart 
from  purely  Hebrew  tradition  into  two  tendencies,  those  in  sympathy 
with  Neo-Platonism  and  those  in  sympathy  with  Epicureanism,  and 
even  these  came  just  as  ancient  civilization  was  setting  in  thunder 
clouds.  Palestine  had  been  subjugated  by  Rome,  a  civilization  that 
carried  no  philosophy  or  culture  in  its  wake,  and  here  amid  the  ruins 
of  its  own  civilization  and  the  decline  of  the  Roman  empire,  there 
arose  a  conception  of  the  soul  and  its  survival  of  death  that  soon  made 
the  conquest  of  the  world  against  the  whole  influence  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  the  philosophy  of  the  one  having  ended  in  materialism  or  de- 
spair and  the  morals  of  the  other  in  the  debaucheries  of  power  and 
conquest.  Whatever  moral  and  social  impulses  may  have  inspired 
the  origin  of  what  is  known  as  Christianity  or  gave  it  a  mission  in  that 
critical  period  of  social  disruption,  it  is  a  matter  of  history  that  it  soon 
concentrated  in  a  religion  based  upon  a  doctrine  of  personal  immortality 
or  survival  after  death.  We  need  not  examine  all  the  motives  that  led 
to  this  consummation,  as  we  are  concerned  only  with  the  one  that 
terminated  in  the  necessity  of  a  metaphysics.  This  motive  was  not  a 
theory  of  the  cosmos  to  start  with  nor  even  a  theory  of  the  nature  of 
the  soul,  but  a  simple  appeal  to  an  alleged  fact  which  required  an 
explanation.  This  alleged  fact  was  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  his 
personal  reappearance  after  death. 

I  am  not  concerned  with  the  origin  of  this  story  nor  with  either  its 
truth  or  its  falsity,  but  with  the  fact  that  the  allegation  was  made  and 
believed.  This  was  quite  sufficient  to  start  a  philosophy,  just  as  the 
alleged  influence  of  weight  on  downward  motion  was  sufficient  to  serve 
as  a  basis  for  materialism.  A  philosophy  may  follow  as  readily  from 
a  false  assumption  as  from  a  fact.  Now  it  is  to  be  especially  remarked 
that  the  story  of  the  resurrection  did  not  bring  with  it  any  preconcep- 
tions of  the  material  or  immaterial  nature  of  the  "  soul."  All  that  it 
implied  was  that  personality  or  personal  consciousness  survived  the 
change  called  death  and  we  were  left  free  to  denominate  its  subject  as 
we  pleased.  Hence  on  any  conception  of  the  substantial  nature  of  the 
"  soul,"  it  denied  the  assertion  of  the  materialists  that  personality  dis- 


SPIRITUA  LISM.  43  7 

appeared  with  the  body.  Here  was  a  direct  issue  with  that  school 
based  upon  alleged  fact  and  a  regressive  inductive  inference  rather 
than  a  progressive  deductive  inference  from  a  preconceived  notion  of 
the  nature  of  the  "  soul."  The  conclusion  was  not  founded  upon  a 
denial  of  the  materialist's  metaphysics,  but  upon  the  allegation  of  a 
fact  which  contradicted  the  conclusion  from  that  system,  or  if  not  the 
natural  conclusion  from  it,  the  opinion  maintained  by  the  school  in 
regard  to  survival  after  death.  Materialism  was  thus  made  to  choose 
between  the  denial  of  the  fact  of  a  resurrection  and  the  implication  of 
its  doctrine  that  consciousness  was  a  function  of  the  bodily  organism. 
Christianity  simply  presented  an  alleged  case  of  actual  survival  after 
death  against  the  asserted  impossibility  of  it  by  the  materialist.  Phi- 
losophy was  challenged  to  explain  away  the  fact  or  to  accept  its  signifi- 
cance. Accepting  its  truth  and  significance,  the  next  task  was  to  create 
a  system  of  which  this  possibility  of  survival  was  a  necessary  conse- 
quence or  a  part  of  a  cosmic  scheme. 

The  allegation  of  Christ's  resurrection  appears,  superficially  at 
least,  to  have  represented  a  wholly  new  conception  and  it  impressed 
later  philosophers  of  every  school  with  the  conviction  that  it  was  a 
totally  supernatural  conception  and  that  it  violated  every  principle  of 
Greek  philosophy.  But  whatever  can  be  said  about  the  authenticity 
of  the  story,  it  is  an  illusion  to  suppose  that  the  idea  was  wholly  new 
or  that  it  was  in  total  contradiction  with  any  of  the  Greek  philosophies 
except  Plato  !  It  was  a  conception  that  grew  right  out  of  materialism 
itself  and  was  a  very  natural  inference  from  its  doctrine  of  the  "  soul." 
All  that  it  contradicted  in  that  system  was  its  assertion,  not  supported 
by  its  conception  of  the  "  soul,"  that  survival  was  not  a  fact,  while  it 
appropriated  the  doctrine  that  the  "soul"  was  an  organism  of  very 
fine  matter  or  atoms  complementary  to  the  physical  body  which  sug- 
gested that  its  integrity  might  not  be  dependent  upon  the  bodily  organi- 
zation. Thus  the  new  spiritualism,  instead  of  following  in  the  wake 
of  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  the  Stoics,  or  the  pantheistic  nihilism  of  the 
Neo-Platonists,  as  later  philosophy  did,  simply  grew  out  of  Greek 
materialism  !  That  this  materialistic  theory  had  to  some  extent  per- 
meated Judaistic  thought  is  apparent  in  the  controversy  between  the 
Sadducees  and  Pharisees  on  this  point.  These  sects  had  apparently 
-discussed  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  divided  upon  it  before 
Christianity  arose,  the  former  denying  and  the  latter  affirming,  not 
only  its  persistence,  but  also  a  doctrine  of  resurrection.  The  Sad- 
ducees assumed  that  the  soul  perished  with  the  body  and  did  not 
**  rise "  again ;  the  Pharisees  assumed  that  it  survived  death  and  so 


438  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

"arose"  from  the  grave.  The  one  accepted  the  negative,  and  the 
other  the  positive  conception  of  the  materialists  in  regard  to  the  nature 
and  destiny  of  the  "  soul."  The  reader  will  remember  that  I  called 
attention,  when  discussing  it  (p.  368),  to  an  inconsistency  in  Greek 
materialism  in  its  doctrine  of  the  "  soul."  It  actually  admitted  that 
the  "  soul "  was  a  fine  material  (in  later  parlance,  immaterial)  organism 
inhabiting  the  body,  and  did  not  explicitly  assert  that  it  was  a  modal 
function  of  the  physical  body  that  perished.  I  remarked  that  this  con- 
cession was  inconsistent  with  the  dogmatic  denial  of  survival  and  that 
the  doctrine  might  be  converted  into  a  basis  for  immortality  rather 
than  an  argument  against  it.  This  was  all  the  easier  for  the  reason 
that  ancient  thought  did  not  make  any  clear  distinction  between  the 
supersensible  and  the  superphysical,  and  it  made  no  difference  in  the 
case,  whether  it  did  or  did  not  so  distinguish  them  because  all  agreed 
that  the  "substance"  of  anything  was  permanent  and  only  the 
functions  of  composite  organism  were  transient  and  perishable,  so 
that  materialism  could  escape  a  fatal  ad  hominem  argument  only  by 
giving  up  the  conception  which  it  had  maintained  regarding  the  soul 
and  by  treating  it  as  a  function  of  a  perishable  organism.  This  latter 
was  the  alternative  which  the  later  and  modern  materialism  took. 

Now  in  this  connection  there  was  another  conceptual  development 
of  some  interest.  Ancient  thought  of  all  kinds  assumed  the  Ptolemaic 
conception  of  the  universe.  This  made  the  earth  the  center  of  it,  the 
point  toward  which  all  heavier  and  coarser  matter  gravitated,  and  the 
finer  matter  arose  heavenward.  The  Epicureans  were  the  exception 
to  this  and  made  all  matter  gravitate  downward  with  the  same  velocity. 
We  know  what  a  prominent  place  this  doctrine  of  the  downward 
tendency  of  heavy  matter  and  the  upward  tendency  of  lighter  matter 
had  in  earlier  Greek  philosophy,  and  that  in  Aristotle  and  others  it 
took  the  form  of  asserting  that  the  stars  were  "  divine"  beings.  We 
have  then  the  conception  that  matter  of  the  heavier  or  grosser  sort 
tended  downward,  and  matter  of  the  finer  and  ethereal  sort  tended  up- 
ward. When  this  distinction  took  the  form  of  "  matter"  and  "spirit,'' 
it  was  clear  what  the  natural  tendencies  of  thought  would  be  in  connec- 
tion with  the  general  doctrine  of  Hades  or  the  "  underworld  "  and  the 
materialistic  theory  of  an  ethereal  organism,  especially  when  the  idea  was 
combined  with  an  ethical  and  probative  scheme  of  the  cosmos.  Both 
Greek  and  Hebrew  thought  of  the  common  type  admitted  the  existence 
of  an  "  underworld  "  which  was  a  sort  of  undefined  depositary  residence 
for  departed  bodies  and  "  spirits"  alike,  the  bodies  ultimately  disap. 
pearing.     But  it  was  a  natural  and  logical  sequence  of  the  conception  of 


SPIRITUALISM.  439 

the  body  as  gross  matter  andjfhe  "  soul "  as  ethereal  matter,  that  either 
at  death  or  some  time  later  when  fully  released  from  material  associa- 
tions, the  "  soul"  should  rise  upward,  and  we  should  have  a  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection.  All  that  was  necessary  to  effect  this  result  was  to 
frankly  accept  the  materialist's  conception  of  the  "  soul"  and  to  apply 
the  assumed  fact  of  the  gravitation  of  heavier  matter  and  the  levitation 
of  the  lighter  matter  to  represent  a  complete  conception  of  a  resurrec- 
tion as  the  natural  inference  from  materialism  !  Then  if  we  add  to 
this  the  distinction  between  good  and  bad  souls,  the  virtuous  and  the 
wicked,  along  with  the  Platonic  idea  that  the  sensuous  souls  were  so 
attracted  to  grosser  matter,  in  modern  spiritistic  parlance,  ' '  earth- 
bound  "  spirits,  and  that  the  finer  souls  were  attracted  to  a  more 
"spiritual"  or  ethereal  environment,  we  can  understand  the  evolution 
of  the  ideas  of  Hell  and  Heaven,  as  simply  modifications  of  Hades  or 
Tartarus,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  celestial  space,  on  the  other.  The 
whole  scheme  of  rewards  and  punishments  arose  naturally  out  of  this 
idea  of  a  connection  with  the  gravitation  of  the  body  and  the  levitation 
of  the  soul,  as  soon  as  it  was  connected  with  ethics.  But  the  important 
point  to  keep  in  mind  for  metaphysics  is  the  naturalness  of  a  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection,  as  a  logical  consequence  of  the  admission  of  Greek 
materialism  in  connection  with  the  accepted  gravitation  of  gross  matter 
and  the  levitation  of  ethereal  matter  or  the  "  soul."  There  is  in  it  a 
perfectly  clear  opportunity  for  the  conception  of  a"  spiritual  body " 
such  as  is  evidently  suggested  in  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul,  who  was 
acquainted  with  the  "  sect  of  the  Epicureans,"  as  he  chose  to  rebuke 
some  of  the  early  Christians  for  their  disposition  to  run  after  the 
"  rudiments  of  the  world"  {oroiyrzia  x6apt.au),  atomic  speculations  about 
the  origin  of  things,  and  in  his  assumption  of  the  "spiritual  body" 
he  might  have  granted  any  materialistic  theory  of  this  "matter "as 
long  as  the  "  spiritual  body  "  inhabiting  the  physical  organism  was 
conceded. 

It  is  thus  quite  apparent  that  there  were  definite  philosophic  ante- 
cedents for  a  doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  and  this  of  the  "  physical" 
type  before  any  allegation  of  its  being  a  fact  had  been  made.  There 
was  nothing  in  the  materialistic  and  religious  theories  of  the  time,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  to  render  one  type  of  a"  physical "  resurrection 
antecedently  impossible.  Only  the  resurrection  of  the  ordinary  "  phys- 
ical" body  was  calculated  to  arouse  scepticism.  We  have  also  found 
actual  traces  in  the  division  between  the  Sadducees  and  Pharisees  of  a 
belief  in  the  resurrection,  and  it  only  remains  to  remark  the  circum- 
stances which  might  easily  give  rise  to  the  story  of  Christ's  actual  res- 


44°  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

urrection  without  any  conflict  with  the  materialistic  philosophy  as  then 
conceived,  but  only  with  the  uniform  human  experience  that  the  sensi- 
ble physical  body  perished,  and  the  absence  of  common  reappearances 
after  death.  The  primary  circumstance,  of  course,  is  the  fact  that, 
■with  no  clearly  drawn  distinction  between  supersensible  matter  and 
superphysical  reality,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  accepting  a  "  phys- 
ical" resurrection  of  the  ethereal  type  and  in  giving  credence  to  the 
story  about  the  mode  of  Christ's  triumph  over  death.  The  conception 
did  not  represent  an  entire  break  in  the  continuity  of  human  thought, 
but  was,  in  some  of  its  features  at  least,  an  effective  ad  Lominem  con- 
struction of  materialism,  a  necessary  consequence  of  admitting  the 
existence  of  a  "  spiritual  body"  and  denying  by  implication  that  con- 
sciousness was  a  function  of  the  grosser  physical  organism.  The  story 
thus  simply  fitted  into  the  preconceptions  of  the  prevailing  philosophy 
of  the  time  and  claimed  to  give  an  "  empirical "  fact  requiring  expla- 
nation and  a  consequence  or  illustration  of  that  theory,  a  fact  which 
every  one  might  verify  by  asking  for  the  testimony  of  competent  wit- 
nesses. In  other  words,  the  ground  was  already  prepared  for  the  doc- 
trine of  the  resurrection,  as  supposedly  proved  by  an  instance  of  it,  in 
the  antecedent  philosophic  system  of  the  time  which  it  both  developed 
and  overthrew,  effecting  the  result,  however,  only  by  forcing  material- 
ism to  choose  between  one  or  the  other  of  its  claims  and  to  make  its 
system  consistent,  that  is,  between  accepting  the  denial  of  survival  with 
the  implication  that  consciousness  was  a  function  of  the  bodily  organ- 
ism and  holding  to  the  conception  of  a  "  spiritual  body  "  with  its  impli- 
cation of  personal  continuance  after  death.  It  was  precisely  this  con- 
formity to  philosophic  conceptions  of  a  crude  sort  that  explains  both 
the  acceptance  of  the  story  of  the  resurrection  in  the  genesis  of  a  new 
religion  and  the  liability  to  a  misinterpretation  of  what  might  actually 
have  occurred.  It  is  quite  easy  to  suppose  that  an  apparition  of  Christ 
was  experienced  by  some  of  his  disciples  after  his  death,  and  whether 
we  treat  it  with  Renan  as  a  subjective  hallucination  due  to  excitement 
or  with  others  as  a  veridical  hallucination,  such  a  phenomenon  would 
naturally  appear  to  fit  in  with  the  materialistic  theory  of  the  "  spiritual 
body  "  with  all  who  were  inclined  to  assume  a  real  significance  in  the 
experience,  while  the  wide  acceptance  of  it  and  the  manner  and  con- 
fidence with  which  the  new  sect  concentrated  upon  it,  as  a  basis  for  a 
new  theory  of  things,  go  far  to  suggest  the  possibility  that  something 
occurred  to  make  the  application  of  the  existing  theory  of  a  resurrection 
plausible  in  terms  of  actual  fact.  But  it  would  not  affect  the  case  to 
suppose  that  the  whole  story  was  legendary,  because  there  can  be  no 


SPIRITUALISM.  441 

doubt  that,  at  one  stage  of  the  development  of  Christianity,  it  was 
believed,  and  it  does  not  matter  in  what  form  it  was  believed  to  have 
been  a  fact.  It  was  the  belief  in  the  real  or  alleged  fact  that  determined 
the  development  of  the  Christian  doctrine,  and  not  the  actual  occur- 
rence of  the  event  as  described,  though  it  might  be  claimed  with  some 
show  of  reason  that  such  a  story  would  not  likely  take  such  a  hold  of 
men  at  the  time  unless  something  unusual  had  actually  occurred  to 
give  an  explanation  of  the  genesis  of  the  story.  But  with  that  we 
have  nothing  to  do,  as  the  influence  of  the  doctrine  depends  upon  its  be- 
lief and  not  on  the  authenticity  of  the  incidents.  But  the  later  we  place 
the  origin  of  the  story  which  was  believed,  the  more  probable  it  is  that 
it  represents  a  misinterpretation  of  what  actually  occurred,  and  where 
the  materialistic  theory  of  the  "  soul  "  was  not  known  or  was  forgotten, 
the  more  likely  was  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  to  take  the  form  of 
application  to  the  ordinary  physical  body  and  to  invite  scepticism  and 
opposition  from  the  standpoint  of  both  philosophy  and  ordinary  experi- 
ence. It  required  acquaintance  with  the  real  conceptions  of  philo- 
sophical materialism  to  detect  the  possible  meaning  of  a  story  like  the 
resurrection,  but  as  common  people  were  the  vehicles  of  its  preserva- 
tion and  communication  it  would  easily  undergo  the  modifications  to 
which  all  second-hand  narratives  are  exposed.  This  is  apparent  in  the 
doctrine  of  St.  Paul,  who,  understanding  Epicureanism  in  some  of  its 
features  at  least,  evidently  had  a  theory  of  the  "spiritual  body"  not 
wholly  consonant  with  later  theories  of  the  bodily  resurrection 

I  need  not  repeat  at  length  how  the  fact  of  a  resurrection,  whether 
of  the  actual  physical  body  or  of  the  ethereal  organism  in  the  form  of 
a  veridical  hallucination,  and  whether  proved  or  believed,  would  nec- 
essarily affect  the  materialistic  doctrine  interpreted  as  a  denial  of  per- 
sonal survival  after  death.  This  is  apparent  on  the  face  of  it.  But 
the  conception  of  it  is  most  interesting  as  an  actual  development  of  one 
side  of  materialism  involving  a  conception  of  an  ethereal  organism  that 
was  a  standing  temptation  to  interpret  unusual  experiences  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  belief  the  very  contradictory  of  its  intentions.  But  the  moment 
that  materialism  changed  its  base  and  regarded  consciousness  as  the 
function  of  the  bodily  organism,  and  not  of  a  "spiritual"  organism, 
this  ad  hornmem  argument  against  it  would  have  no  cogency,  and  the 
whole  issue  would  then  depend,  as  it  came  to  do,  upon  the  nature,  the 
authenticity,  and  the  accuracy  of  the  story  of  the  resurrection. 

There  were  at  least  two  general  influences  that  diverted  Christianity 
in  the  direction  of  an  anti-materialistic  philosophy  for  a  solution  of  its 
problem,  after  being  obliged  to  surrender  the  ad  hominem  appeal  on 


44 2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  consequences  of  the  materialist's  doctrine  of  a  "spiritual  body." 
The  first  was  St.  Paul's  conception  of  Christianity  as  a  part  of  a  cosmic 
dispensation  initiated  and  sustained  for  the  personal  salvation  of  man, 
and  the  second  was  the  isolated  and  individual  character  of  the  alleged 
fact  upon  which  so  much  was  made  to  depend,  together  with  its  with- 
drawal beyond  the  boundaries  of  personal  knowledge  and  verification. 
These  two  influences  are  combined  in  the  necessity  of  reliance  upon  a 
personal  Deity  to  fulfil  the  promises  of  a  future  life  implanted  in  human 
instincts  after  the  individual  instance  of  its  alleged  proof  had  faded  into 
the  twilight  of  fable.  As  time  passed  on  the  difficulties  of  believing 
any  story  of  a  resurrection  increased  and  it  seemed  too  small  a  piece 
of  evidence  to  support  so  large  a  doctrine,  and  hence  the  necessity  of 
proving  that  the  universe  was  created  and  sustained  by  a  personal  divin- 
ity with  a  view  to  the  spiritual  development  and  immortality  of  man. 
This  result  could  not  be  trusted  to  the  caprices  of  a  mechanical  system 
supposed  by  materialism  to  be  dominated  by  chance.  Any  security 
that  could  be  obtained  for  the  beliefs  in  a  personal  providence  would 
redound  to  the  credibility  of  the  belief  that  his  creatures  would  hardly 
have  ideals  and  duties  that  were  not  realizable  in  their  incarnate  exist- 
ence, and  in  fact  Kant  makes  this  disparity  between  merit  and  duty  an 
argument  for  immortality  and  the  necessity  of  a  cause  to  establish  a 
relation  of  this  kind  between  duty  and  happiness  an  argument  for  the 
existence  of  God.  What  could  not  be  vindicated,  therefore,  by  reliance 
upon  a  story  which  was  so  isolated  as  the  resurrection,  as  understood, 
and  which  had  lost  its  setting  in  the  economy  of  things,  had  to  be 
sought  in  the  theistic  doctrine  of  a  personal  God  whose  character 
would  appear  inconsistent  if  he  permitted  the  annihilation  of  beings, 
his  own  creatures,  whose  moral  ideals  pointed  to  conditions  which  the 
present  existence  did  not  realize  and  where  duty,  without  this  hope, 
seemed  to  have  such  limitations  that  its  validity  might  be  questioned 
and  its  power  inevitably  weakened. 

When  Christian  philosophy  found  it  necessary  to  undertake  a  re- 
construction of  metaphvsics  in  reply  to  materialism,  as  it  was  con- 
ceived in  opposition  to  the  existence  of  an  immaterial  soul  and  its 
survival  of  death,  it  had  to  arrange  for  a  cosmological  as  well  as  a 
psvchological  problem.  The  assumptions  which  it  developed  in  the 
completion  of  its  task,  extending  over  many  centuries,  and  for  meeting 
its  emergencies,  can  be  summed  up  in  the  following  conceptions,  as 
representing  loans  from  the  preexisting  systems  of  speculation.  They 
are  conceptions  which  we  shall  require  to  constantly  keep  in  mind 
when  estimating  the  efforts  and  accomplishments  of  mediaeval  thought. 


SPIRITUALISM.  443 

(i)  Christian  philosophy  accepted  the  Aristotelian  conception  of  a 
"  prime  mover,"  giving  it  Plato's  conception  of  a  Demiourgos  or  crea- 
tor of  the  cosmic  order,  that  is,  a  doctrine  of  theism.  (2)  It  accepted 
Plato's  conception  of  the  transient  nature  of  matter,  both  sensible  and 
supersensible,  and  with  it  the  notion  of  creation  as  opposed  to  evolu- 
tion and  the  eternity  of  matter.  (3)  It  accepted  the  conception  of 
individuality  which  was  represented  in  the  materialist's  indivisible 
and  indestructible  atom.  To  what  it  borrowed  it  added  the  concep- 
tion of  the  soul  as  an  immaterial  substance  of  which  consciousness 
was  a  function  or  attribute,  and  its  imperishable  nature  followed  as  a 
consequence  of  its  distinction  from  the  "  phenomenal"  character  of 
matter  and  its  own  indivisible  or  indecomposable  nature,  where  the 
theory  did  not  make  survival  a  result  of  grace.  The  "  phenomenal" 
nature  of  the  cosmos  was  admitted  with  Plato  and  the  soul  made  a 
substance  not  subject  to  the  vicissitudes  of  material  changes  in  any 
form  but  only  of  separation  from  the  body.  The  conception  of  it  as 
immaterial  and  hence  as  superphysical  rather  than  supersensible  matter 
was  a  distinct  break  with  the  monism  of  Greek  philosophy  and  initiated 
a  dualism  which  completed  itself  in  the  philosophy  of  Descartes  and 
tended  to  the  conception  and  definition  of  the  soul  in  terms  of  abstrac- 
tions and  negations  of  matter,  because  speculation  constantly  forgot 
the  existence  of  the  supersensible  in  the  material  world  and  undertook 
to  make  sense  perception  the  measure  of  the  material  substance  and 
abstraction  of  sense  the  criterion  of  the  spiritual,  resulting  in  the  nega- 
tion of  all  that  is  apparently  real  for  the  determination  of  the  ideal  or 
spiritual. 

It  was  the  biblical  theory  of  creation,  reasserted  by  St.  Paul,  that 
forced  Christianity  to  undertake  a  cosmology.  This  view  asserted 
that  the  "  world  "  had  a  beginning  in  time  and  was  at  least  in  apparent 
contradiction  with  the  materialistic  doctrine  of  that  period.  Accept- 
ing with  Aristotle,  therefore,  that  all  motion  or  change  had  a  beginning 
and  that  matter  was  incapable  of  initiating  its  own  motion,  there  was 
no  trouble  in  seeking  the  cause  of  it  and  of  the  cosmic  order  in  an 
immaterial  power.  Hence  it  was  a  short  step  to  theism  which  simply 
added  the  Judaistic  conception  of  a  personal  deity  to  the  Aristotelian 
idea  of  firimum  mobile  and  which  came  in  to  explain  the  origin  and 
development  of  the  system  which  was  to  culminate  in  man's  personal 
salvation  and  immortality.  But  Aristotle  admitted  the  independent 
existence  of  matter  and  required  his  primum  mobile  only  to  initiate  its 
motion  and  after  that  things  went  on  pretty  much  as  the  materialists 
conceived  it,  except  that  the  Aristotelian  process  of  evolution  was 


444  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

more  closely  allied  to  metamorphosis  than  composition  of  atomic 
elements.  As  a  more  complete  overthrow  of  materialism,  whatever  its 
mechanical  principles  might  explain  after  the  existence  of  matter  had 
once  been  admitted,  Christianity  went  further  to  declare  that  even 
elementary  matter  as  well  as  the  cosmic  order  or  sensible  world  was  a 
"  creation"  of  the  divine  power.  Atoms  also  had  a  beginning  in  time 
and  might  be  destructible.  The  whole  cosmic  system,  "  phenomenal " 
and  "  noumenal,"  was  conceived  as  a  dependent  reality,  obedient  to  a 
personal  intelligence  of  an  immaterial  or  spiritual  nature,  so  that  in 
the  final  outcome  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  assigning  conscious- 
ness in  man  a  possible  place  not  so  easily  proved  on  materialistic 
assumptions.  Accepting  this  position  philosophy  had  no  ultimate 
dualism  to  contend  with,  while  it  excluded  the  possibility  of  ultimately 
explaining  even  mechanical  "phenomena"  independently  of  intelli- 
gence. But  whatever  consistency  or  conceivability  this  view  may 
have,  it  has  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  evidential  problem  and  in  Hume 
and  Kant  it  reached  a  sceptical  result. 

The  adoption  of  the  atomic  conception  of  individuality  and  of  sub- 
stance that  is  simple  and  indivisible  was  a  concession  to  materialism, 
even  though  it  made  this  substance  ultimately  dependent,  in  as  much 
as  this  individuality  served  as  a  basis  for  the  attachment  of  persistent 
qualities  which  might  survive  change  and  decomposition.  It  was 
qualified  to  apply  an  ad  hominem  argument  in  favor  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  by  making  it  a  simple  substance.  It  is  apparent  here  that 
the  whole  Platonic  point  of  view  was  abandoned,  except  in  so  far  as 
Plato  admitted  that  the  "soul"  was  simple.  Plato  was  trying  to 
secure  immortality  after  he  conceived  the  soul  as  a  mode  of  reality,  an 
activity  of  substance,  and  never  reached  the  position  by  which  he 
could  make  this  tenable  or  easily  conceivable.  In  his  vacillation 
between  pantheistic  monism  with  a  doctrine  of  metamorphosis  and  a 
doctrine  of  atomism  he  never  brought  himself  clearly  to  recognize 
simple  persistent  substances  with  attributes  remaining  through  change, 
though  it  is  possible  to  say  that  the  clarification  of  his  conceptions 
leads  to  this  result,  and  hence  Christianity  gained  a  logical  advantage 
and  a  more  intelligible  point  of  view  by  supposing  with  the  materialists 
and  emphasizing  the  fact  that  certain  qualities  may  persist  through 
changes  of  composition  in  the  elementary  substances  which  served  as 
the  centers  of  reference  for  various  "phenomena."  It  appropriated 
the  Aristotelian  and  Epicurean  conception  of  substance  as  the  perma- 
nent base  of  "  phenomena,"  but  gave  it  the  individuality  of  Epicurus 
so  that  it  had  a  center  of  reference  to  which  it  could  attach  conscious- 


SPIRITUALISM.  445 

ness  or  personality  as  an  activity  without  implicating  it  in  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  matter  simple  or  compound.  If  Christian  philosophy  had 
conceived  this  unitary  being,  represented  as  mind  and  immaterial  sub- 
stance, as  the  subject  of  metamorphic  changes  or  modal  modifications, 
it  might  have  gotten  only  the  permanence  of  substance  and  not  the 
persistence  of  its  modes  through  changes  of  relation.  But  as  in  the 
case  of  consciousness  the  moral  interest  lay  in  the  preservation  of  this 
functional  activity,  Christian  philosophy  abandoned  the  idea  of  meta- 
morphosis for  that  of  a  substance  with  a  fixed  set  of  attributes,  the 
notion  of  the  materialists,  and  supposed  that  personality,  once  in  exist- 
ence, could  persist  through  the  changes  effected  by  death,  while  it 
could  allow  for  all  sorts  of  incidental  effects  from  composition.  Here 
again  there  is  no  difficulty  in  the  conception  because  it  conforms  to 
every  requirement  of  the  materialistic  theory  in  its  representation,  but 
however  possible  and  consistent  the  doctrine  may  be  it  has  to  face  the 
evidential  criterion. 

The  purest  form  of  this  adoption  of  the  materialistic  conception  of 
permanent  reality  is  found  in  Tertullian,  who  undertook  a  curious 
defense  of  immortality  by  appropriating  the  atomic  doctrine  in  favor 
of  the  soul.  He  so  felt  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  an  immaterial 
basis  for  consciousness  as  a  persistent  function,  probably  influenced  by 
the  perplexities  of  the  Platonic  conception,  that  he  simply  abandoned 
all  efforts  to  dislodge  materialism  by  supposing  a  "spiritual"  sub- 
stratum and  boldly  asserted  that  the  soul  had  to  be  material  in  order  to 
be  immortal.  He  accepted  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  at  least 
subject  to  the  divine  will,  in  the  atomic  form  and  appropriated  the 
conception  to  assume  that  the  soul  was  a  material  atom  and  so  imperish- 
able. He  had  no  difficulty  with  the  past,  as  the  reincarnationist  must 
have,  because  he  conceived  all  matter  as  created.  It  was  its  simplicity 
that  guaranteed  it  future  permanence  when  once  created,  even  though 
in  the  final  analysis  this  persistence  might  be  conditioned  as  dependent 
upon  the  will  of  the  creator.  But  the  conception  of  the  soul  as  a 
material  atom,  whatever  we  may  think  of  it  as  an  alleged  fact,  in  order 
to  secure  its  persistence  after  death  was  an  ad  hominem  argument- of 
an  irresistible  kind.  Its  weakness,  however,  lay  in  the  character  of 
all  philosophic  arguments  at  that  time.  It  was  only  an  a  priori  possi- 
bility deducible  from  assumptions  which  themselves  might  be  brought 
into  court  and  there  was  no  way  of  proving  by  observation  or  experi- 
ment that  the  substratum  of  consciousness  was  a  material  atom.  The 
test  for  this  would  be  nothing  more  or  less  than  an  adequate  pair  of 
scales  applied  before  and  after  death,  with  allowance  for  various  diffi- 


446  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

culties  which  modern  science  would  quickly  show  were  fatal  against 
anything  conclusive.  Moreover  the  cogency  of  his  claim  for  an  atomic 
subject  for  consciousness  depended  upon  the  assumption  of  such  a 
difference  between  mental  and  physical  functions  that  the  demand  for 
an  immaterial  subject  would  be  as  rational  as  that  for  a  material  atom. 
But  the  evidence  for  both  was  lacking,  while  the  tendency  of  specula- 
tion was  toward  an  antithesis  between  mind  and  matter  in  the  attempt 
to  explain  the  "  phenomena"  of  consciousness,  and  however  effective 
Tertullian's  position  might  prove  in  an  a  priori  argument,  the  natural 
and  logical  tendency  of  most  minds  is  to  refute  materialism  by  denying 
its  major  premise,  that  is,  by  disputing  the  possibility  that  conscious- 
ness can  in  any  way  be  a  function  of  matter,  whether  simple  or  com- 
pound. This  was  the  course  taken  by  philosophical  development  and 
it  terminated  in  the  dualism  of  Descartes  who  worked  out  the  mediaeval 
antithesis  into  its  clearest  expression. 

I  do  not  care  anything  about  the  motives  of  Cartesianism  nor  about 
its  details.  The  point  of  interest  to  our  present  problem  is  the  manner 
in  which  the  original  antithesis  between  the  material  and  the  spiritual 
worked  itself  out  into  radical  definition.  This  Descartes  indicated  by 
maintaining  that  the  matter  was  qualified  by  extension  as  its  essential 
property  without  any  consciousness  and  mind  as  qualified  by  conscious- 
ness as  its  essential  function  without  any  extension.  Matter  was 
extended ;  mind  was  not  extended,  but  spaceless.  The  opposition 
between  them  was  so  radical  that  a  causal  relation  between  their  func- 
tions has  seemed  impossible  and  the  consequence  was  the  intellectual 
movement  which  terminated  in  materialism,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
idealism,  on  the  other.  Both  endeavored  to  escape  the  dualism  of 
Descartes.  Materialism  either  accepted  the  extension  of  matter  and 
made  consciousness  one  of  its  functions  or,  as  in  Spinoza,  made  exten- 
sion and  consciousness  non-convertible  functions  of  matter.  Idealism 
ended  either  in  denying  extension  of  both  matter  and  mind,  as  in  Leib- 
nitz, or  in  making  space  a  "form  of  perception"  without  saying 
whether  it  was  to  be  conceived  as  a  property  of  either  matter  or  mind, 
a  .curious  .and  mongrel  evasion  of  the  problem  which  the  ordinary 
human  thinker  must  conceive  as  denying  extension  to  matter  and  affirm- 
ing it  of  mind !  This,  of  course,  was  not  the  intention  of  the  system, 
but  the  attempt  to  conceive  what  it  means  leads  to  something  very 
like  this  description  of  it  and  represents  something  actually  very 
close  to  it,  unless  the  objectivity  of  space  be  admitted  in  some 
sense  of  the  term.  But  whatever  it  meant,  the  system  was  simply 
one  of    those    whose    speculations    were    determined    by  the    impor- 


SPIRITUALISM.  ■  447 

tance  which  Cartesianism  gave  to  extension  as  a  determinant  factor 
in  metaphysics. 

In  his  h-eatment  of  the  problem  Descartes  assumed  as  a  foregone 
conclusion  that  consciousness  must  have  a  different  subject  from  ma- 
terial "  phenomena."  This  conception  was  so  ingrained  in  the  course 
and  results  of  scholastic  thought,  and  perhaps  so  articulated  with  the 
moral  and  religious  prejudices  or  interests  of  the  time,  that  he  either 
saw  no  reason  to  question  the  assumption  or  no  safety  in  disputing  it, 
if  he  did  see  it.  However  this  may  have  been  he  did  not  dispute  it, 
but  accepted  the  real  or  apparent  distinction  between  mental  and 
physical  "  phenomena,"  whether  from  motives  of  prudence  or  phi- 
losophic necessity,  as  demanding  a  corresponding  distinction  between 
their  grounds  or  subjects.  But  he  stated  this  distinction  between 
them  in  such  terms,  excluding  extension  from  mind  and  consciousness 
from  matter,  that  the  philosophers  interpreted  it  as  implying  the  im- 
possibility of  any  causal  relation  between  them  while  Descartes  admitted 
that  this  relation  was  a  fact.  The  attempt  to  explain  how  they  could 
be  related  or  influence  each  other,  as  they  were  defined,  resulted  either 
in  the  denial  of  Cartesian  dualism  or  in  the  denial  of  a  causal  nexus 
between  them.  The  former  was  the  position  of  materialism  and  the 
latter  the  position  of  Leibnitzian  idealism,  with  variations  between 
monism  and  pluralism  in  other  systems.  But  in  all  of  them  there  was 
the  consciousness  of  the  real  or  apparent  necessity  for  either  explain- 
ing or  denying  a  supposed  causal  nexus  between  mental  and  physical 
events. 

But  it  seems  to  the  present  writer  that  there  was  a  fundamental 
misconception  at  the  basis  of  this  development  toward  the  idealistic 
denial  of  a  causal  relation  between  matter  and  mind  in  order  to  solve 
the  problem,  and  this  misconception  was  the  result  of  ignoring  the 
proper  issue.  The  philosophers  involved  in  this  development  presup- 
posed that  there  were  adequate  reasons  for  separating  the  subject  of 
consciousness  from  matter  in  some  form.  Their  first  problem  should 
have  been  to  ascertain  whether  there  were  any  reasons  in  fact  to  assert 
a  subject  for  mental  states  that  was  other  than  the  physical  organism, 
assuming,  of  course,  that  matter  was  an  accepted  fact.  It  was  possi- 
ble to  attack  the  question  as  did  Berkeley  and  to  determine  whether 
there  was  any  material  existence  over  against  the  assumed  existence  of 
mind.  But  the  existence  of  matter,  whether  created  or  uncreated,  was 
so  thoroughly  established  in  human  conviction  at  the  time  of  Descartes 
and  his  followers  that  the  application  of  doubt  to  it  would  have  re- 
ceived no  general  attention  and  would  not  even  have  seemed  plausible 


44s  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  the  philosophers  themselves,  so  that  the  problem  which  presented 
itself  as  the  most  natural  was  the  existence  and  nature  of  the  soul,  that 
of  matter  not  being  questioned  and  the  issue  being  whether  matter 
was  or  was  not  adequate  to  the  explanation  of  consciousness.  We 
must  remember  too  that  even  Berkeley  made  concessions  to  what 
the  term  "  matter"  actually  stood  for,  a  circumstance  which  indicates 
that  his  idealism,  like  his  belief  in  the  miraculous  virtues  of  tar  water, 
had  to  be  taken  cum  grano  salt's. 

It  will  be  said,  of  course,  that  the  philosopher  did  approach  this 
primary  problem  and  gave  his  reasons  in  fact  for  asserting  a  subject 
for  consciousness  other  than  the  organism,  and  that  this  "  reason  in 
fact"  was  the  difference  between  mental  and  physical  "phenomena.'* 
This  defence,  at  least  in  respect  to  method,  is  unquestionably  correct, 
though  the  argument  along  this  line  of  investigation  was  not  expli- 
citly developed  into  a  scientific  issue  which  was  a  question  of  evi- 
dence. It  was  only  when  pressed  to  justify  the  assumption  of  distinct 
subjects  that  the  argument  would  take  the  form  of  the  distinction 
between  mental  and  physical  events,  while  the  real  problem,  as  then 
conceived,  was  not  so  much  the  separateness  of  the  subjects  of  mental 
and  physical  "phenomena"  as  it  was  their  nature,  after  their  indi- 
viduality was  admitted.  There  were  two  distinct  problems  before  the 
philosopher.  The  first  was  the  question  whether  consciousness  was 
a  function  of  the  organism,  that  is,  whether  it  had  a  subject  other  than 
the  brain,  no  matter  what  that  subject  was,  and  the  second  problem 
was  to  determine  what  the  nature  of  that  assumed  separate  subject 
was.  The  first  was  presumably  solved  by  the  appeal  to  the  differences 
between  mental  and  physical  "phenomena."  But  the  difficulty  of 
basing  any  argument  for  a  distinction  of  subjects  upon  the  difference 
between  the  nature  of  the  "phenomena"  is  twofold:  first,  our  igno- 
rance as  to  the  absoluteness  of  the  distinction,  and  second,  the  fact  that 
a  unity  of  subject  is  quite  compatible  with  very  great  differences  of 
attributes.  The  latter  position  is  illustrated  by  all  physical  substances 
and,  on  a  large  philosophic  scale,  by  the  system  of  Spinoza  who 
appears  to  have  had  no  difficulty  in  supposing  that  both  extension  and 
consciousness  could  be  attributes  of  the  same  subject.  The  former  is 
illustrated  by  the  limitations  of  dogmatic  introspection  in  such  matters 
as  physical  sound  and  color.  This  difficulty  was  not  discussed  by  the 
Cartesians  and  was  probably  not  even  appreciated.  They  simply 
assumed  that  it  did  not  exist  and  simply  relied  upon  the  accepted  dif- 
ference between  mental  and  physical  events  to  prove  both  the  existence 
and  the  nature  of  a  distinct  subject  for  consciousness,  though  practi- 


SPIRITUALISM.  449 

cally  unconscious  of  the  first  of  these  problems  as  distinct  from  the 
second,  since  they  were  chiefly  interested  in  the  nature  of  mind  and 
matter.  The  reason  for  this  was  in  the  traditional  conceptions  of  phi- 
losophical and  theological  thought.  The  time  had  passed  when  the 
most  important  issue  was  whether  consciousness  could  be  a  function 
of  the  organism  or  not.  It  was  not  enough  to  secure  its  immortality 
that  consciousness  should  be  proved  to  have  another  subject  than  the 
brain,  as  this  conclusion  would  have  sufficed  to  refute  the  older 
materialism  or  any  materialism  supposing  the  permanence  of  matter. 
But  it  was  now  necessary  to  prove  that  consciousness  was  the  func- 
tion, not  only  of  something  other  than  the  organism,  but  also  of  some- 
thing that  was  not  matter.  The  reason  for  this  necessity  was  the  fact 
that  Christianity  had  contended  for  the  created  and  perishable  nature 
of  matter,  so  that,  if  we  accepted  the  supposition  that  consciousness 
was  an  attribute  of  matter  in  any  form  whatever,  whether  simple  or 
compound,  we  would  be  compelled  to  admit  its  liability  to  disappear- 
ance or  annihilation.  If  the  indestructibility  of  matter  had  been  as 
clearly  recognized  and  its  real  or  apparent  significance  as  keenly  felt 
as  in  later  times,  the  necessity  for  demanding  an  immaterial  basis  for 
the  persistence  of  consciousness  would  not  have  seemed  so  imperative, 
since  philosophy  could  either  have  returned  to  the  position  of  Tertul- 
lian  or  have  accepted  something  like  that  of  Epicurus.  But  as  long  as 
it  conceived  matter,  sensible  and  supersensible,  as  created  and  ephem- 
eral it  could  only  seek  in  the  immaterial  a  basis  for  an  immortality 
which  it  would  not  yield  to  scepticism.  Hence  it  was  the  interest  in 
obtaining  and  defining  a  reality  for  the  subject  of  consciousness  which 
could  survive  change  that  prompted  Cartesian  speculation  to  describe 
mind  as  it  did,  and  to  concentrate  philosophy  upon  the  problem  of  the 
nature  of  the  soul  rather  than  the  question  of  its  existence.  This  latter 
problem  was  rather  ignored  until  the  later  materialists  took  it  up.  It  was 
at  bottom  the  question  whether  any  conception  could  be  obtained  that 
would  guarantee  the  possibility  of  survival  of  death,  and  as  this  could  not 
be  found  in  matter  which  had  come  to  be  conceived  as  created  and  perish- 
able it  had  to  be  found  in  the  immaterial,  the  definition  of  which  had 
to  exclude  the  material,  as  the  Cartesians  thought,  to  the  extent  of  not 
permitting  any  participation  in  extension.  The  primary  problem, 
however,  which  was  not  properly  appreciated  by  the  philosophers, 
was  the  existence  of  a  subject  other  than  the  brain,  and  this  is  a 
question  olfact,  while  the  one  attacked  by  them  was  secondary  and  is 
a  question  of  nature,  and  the  right  to  entertain  it  is  dependent  upon 
the  adequate  solution  of  the  former.  Of  course,  the  philosophers 
29 


45°  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

would  contend  that  they  had  satisfactorily  answered  the  first  question, 
"but  they  allowed  themselves  to  be  governed  by  the  necessities  of  a 
merely  traditional  conception  of  matter  in  the  definition  of  mind,  and 
by  the  manner  in  which  they  discussed  their  dualism,  carrying  into 
the  problem  the  conception  of  material  rather  than  efficient  causation. 
They  thus  created  another  and  larger  problem  than  ever,  whose  attempted 
solution  led  to  a  denial  of  their  claims  for  the  independent  existence  of 
mind  !  This  is  apparent  in  the  result  of  the  attempt  to  explain  the 
admitted  relation  between  mind  and  matter  after  the  distinction  of 
their  nature  was  asserted.  A  causal  relation  or  influence  between 
them  was  admitted,  but  it  appeared  to  be  a  question  how  this  was 
possible  between  things  so  opposed  to  each  other  as  extended  matter 
and  unextended  mind,  especially  as  the  tendency  at  that  time  was  to 
conceive  the  causal  nexus  as  a  constitutive  and  "  material"  one.  The 
manner  of  solving  the  new  problem  defined  very  sharply  the  alternatives 
between  which  the  philosopher  apparently  had  to  choose.  He  had 
apparently  to  decide  between  the  separate  existence  of  mind  and  a  causal 
nexus  between  it  and  matter.  The  failure  to  show  how  this  causal  nexus 
'  was  possible  was  taken  to  prove  either  that  the  Cartesian  conception 
of  mind  was  not  tenable,  or,  if  tenable,  that  the  causal  relation  was 
not  a  fact. 

It  is  possible  to  consider  this  conclusion  as  an  inconsequence. 
There  is  no  reason  to  undertake  the  explanation  of  such  a  causal  rela- 
tion except  upon  the  assumed  validity  of  the  fact,  and  once  granted  as 
a  fact,  the  failure  to  show  hoiv  this  relation  is  possible  does  not  con- 
tradict the  fact,  but  only  leaves  that  problem  unsolved.  It  is  not  ex- 
planation that  validates  a  fact,  but  evidence.  Explanation  follows  the 
admission  of  a  fact  and  does  not  precede  it,  and  is  not  legitimate  until 
the  fact  is  accepted.  Descartes  supposed  that  he  had  evidence  of  the 
fact.  But  scholasticism  had  so  saturated  the  human  mind  with  the 
assumption  that  explanation  is  so  necessary  to  the  acceptance  of  facts 
and  that  failure  at  explanation  discredits  the  premises,  that  an  unex- 
plained causal  relation  between  mind  and  matter  was  taken  as  tanta- 
mount to  a  denial  of  the  fact  of  that  relation  or  to  an  implication  of  the 
truth  of  materialism.  To  me  the  first  problem  is  to  prove  or  disprove 
the  fact  of  a  causal  nexus  between  "  phenomena,"  or  mind  and  matter, 
and  to  explain  it  afterward,  and  not  to  condition  the  fact  or  existence 
of  the  relation  upon  the  possibility  or  success  of  making  it  intelligible 
in  terms  of  a  given  assumption.  Making  it  intelligible  in  such  a  man- 
ner may  explain  its  nature  and  make  it  unnecessary  to  dispute  its 
credibilitv,  but  it  does   not  determine  that  it  is  a  fact.     Hence  the 


SPIRITUALISM.  45 » 

failure  to  explain  an  alleged  circumstance  by  reference  to  the  known 
or  assumed  does  not  disprove  its  claim  to  be  a  fact,  though  it  may 
justify  some  suspense  of  judgment,  out  of  respect  to  the  fact  that  unity 
and  consistency  will  enable  us  to  escape  contradiction  even  when  they 
are  not  the  evidence  of  truth. 

But  if  the  case  is  as  I  have  indicated,  why  did  the  course  of  phi- 
losophy take  the  direction  that  it  assumed  and  why  did  it  seem  impos- 
sible to  suppose  a  causal  relation  between  mind  and  matter  on  the 
assumption  of  Descartes  regarding  the  nature  of  the  two  subjects?  If 
the  nature  of  mind  and  matter  as  facts  is  one  thing  and  the  causal  rela- 
tion between  them  as  a  fact  is  another,  the  evidence  in  each  case  being 
different,  how  can  they  contradict  and  why  should  philosophy  have 
argued  as  if  they  did  contradict  ?  It  is  a  fact  that  men  have  generally 
thought  that  either  Cartesian  dualism  or  the  causal  relation  between 
mind  and  matter  had  to  be  surrendered.  But  if  both  are  facts  deter- 
mined by  independent  evidence,  why  should  men  think  so?  The 
answer  to  this  question  is  simple  enough.  This  answer  is  the  fact 
that  it  was  not  the  antithesis  or  dualism  between  mind  and  matter,  the 
assumed  inextension  of  mind  and  extension  of  matter,  that  gave  the 
trouble,  but  it  was  the  assumption  that  the  causal  relation  had  to  be  a 
material  one,  if  admitted  at  all,  and  this  conceived  it  as  an  application 
of  the  principle  of  the  transmission  of  influence  from  subject  to  sub- 
ject, as  causality  was  interpreted  in  the  "  mechanical"  world,  involv- 
ing the  principle  of  identity,  while  the  definition  of  the  two  realities 
involved  the  principle  of  difference  or  contradiction  in  the  most  definite 
form,  far  more  radical  than  the  ancient  distinction  between  the  sensi- 
ble and  supersensible  worlds  of  matter.  This  conception  of  causality 
was  that  of  a  "  mechanical  "  injiuxus  fihysicus,  as  proved  by  the  way 
that  Leibnitz  and  others  understood  it,  and  which  was  conceived  in 
terms  of  motion  or  the  translation  of  force.  This  implied  extension, 
while  the  very  definition  of  mind  excluded  extension  from  it,  so  that  a 
relation  of  material  causation  was  rendered  impossible.  Hence  it  was 
not  the  extended  nature  of  matter'and  the  unextended  nature  of  mind 
that  created  the  difficulty,  but  the  assumption  of  extension  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  causal  nexus  accepted  as  a  fact,  that  contradicted  the 
supposed  nature  of  one  of  the  subjects.  If  the  conception  of  efficient 
or  occasional  causality  had  been  developed,  free  from  the  paradoxes  of 
"  preestablished  harmony"  the  conception  of  dualism,  as  representing 
both  extended  and  unextended  realities,  would  have  offered  no  insu- 
perable logical  difficulties,  whatever  might  have  been  the  result  of 
investigation  as  to  the   facts.     The   contradiction  was    between   the 


453  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

assumptions  regarding  the  qualitative  nature  of  the  two  subjects  and 
the  nature  of  the  causal  nexus,  and  not  between  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
jects and  the  fact  that  there  was  some  kind  of  a  causal  relation. 

I  am,  however,  not  defending  dualism  in  this  analysis  of  the  prob- 
lem :  for  I  am  indifferent  to  either  its  truth  or  falsity,  because  the  con- 
ception is  so  elastic  that  it  can  be  made  either  true  or  false  according 
to  definition  and  ought  not  to  give  the  philosophers  any  more  difficulties 
than  atomic  pluralism,  which  is  little  more  than  dualism  multiplied. 
But  with  this  remark  against  misunderstanding  the  motive  and  tendency 
of  my  argument,  I  may  simply  add  the  observation  that  the  wide  enter- 
tainment of  a  doctrine  of  dualism  in  some  form,  even  among  philos- 
ophers, requires  explanation  and  apology  quite  as  much  as  the  philo- 
sophic tendency  in  some  minds  to  regard  it  as  inconceivable.  But  the 
position  that  the  difficulty  is  not  in  the  dualism  per  se,  as  a  doctrine 
of  difference  between  mind  and  matter,  but  in  the  assumption  of  a 
causal  relation  incompatible  with  its  conception,  while  some  rational 
and  intelligible  relation  has  to  be  admitted  as  a  fact,  if  clear  thinking 
is  possible,  is  an  apology  for  both  sides,  while  the  fact  may  suggest 
that  the  theory  might  be  as  much  misunderstood  by  its  critics  as  it  has 
been  misrepresented  by  its  advocates.  The  first  question  is  whether 
the  nature  of  mental  and  physical  "  phenomena"  is  such  as  to  require 
different  subjects  for  them,  together  with  the  qualities  which  deter- 
mined their  nature  as  realities,  and  the  next  and  independent  question 
is  whether  there  is  any  influential  connection  between  them,  and  not 
whether  that  connection  is  of  a  kind  to  contradict  the  distinction  which 
the  facts  require  us  to  make  between  them.  The  conception  of  an 
efficient  causal  nexus  between  them  is  quite  compatible  with  a  differ- 
ence of  their  nature  and  may  be  necessary  to  accept  the  unity  of  action 
with  that  difference  which  we  actually  observe. 

This  brings  us  to  the  theory  of  parallelism  again,  and  the  problem 
which  it  undertakes  to  solve  or  the  conclusion  which  it  endeavors  to 
establish.  We  saw  in  discussing  materialism  (p.  391)  that  the 
"  mechanical"  conceptions  of  Descartes  and  his  followers  in  the  field 
of  physical  science  tended  to  interpret  the  idea  of  causality  in  terms  of 
the  transmission  of  force  or  the  principle  of  material  as  distinct  from 
efficient  causes,  and  that  the  final  proof  of  the  theory  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  tended  to  place  the  Cartesian  conception  beyond  dispute 
and  to  interpret  "  mechanical  "  causation  in  terms  of  qualitative  identity 
between  antecedent  and  consequent.  We  then  showed  that  Leibnitz 
tried  his  doctrine  of  monadism  with  its  denial  of  an  injluxus  physicus 
and  with  its  affirmation  of    preestablished  harmony  against  materi- 


SPIRITUALISM.  453 

alism  and  its  "mechanical"  conceptions,  and  so  gave  rise  to  par- 
allelism which  has  again  been  revived  among  philosophers  as  an 
argument  against  the  materialistic  theory  in  recent  years.  What 
parallelism  tries  to  show  is  that  consciousness  and  physical  events 
are  not  convertible  as  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
assumes  when  qualitatively  interpreted.  Its  object  is  to  show  that  they 
are  so  different  in  kind  that  we  cannot  conceive  their  transmutation 
into  each  other  or  any  relations  of  material  identity  as  materialism  is 
supposed  to  require  of  this  causal  relation.  It  assumes  that  if  this 
material  causal  relation  is  denied  of  them  the  materialistic  theory  must 
abandon  its  claim  to  explaining  consciousness  by  a  "mechanical" 
theory.  We  have  granted  that  this  argument  is  conclusive  against 
materialism,  if  it  is  made  definitively  convertible  with  the  idea  of 
material  causation  or  the  absolute  identity  of  mental  and  physical 
"  phenomena,"  and  that  materialism  would  have  to  resort  to  the  con- 
ception of  efficient  causation  to  escape  refutation.  I  also  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  spiritualist,  if  he  had  accepted  the  materialist's 
position  and  principle  of  material  causation,  would  have  had  a  fatal 
ad  hominem  argument  against  his  denial  of  the  persistence  of  con- 
sciousness and  in  favor  of  at  least  the  concomitance  of  consciousness 
with  all  physical  "  phenomena"  and  possibly  the  identity  of  physical 
and  mental  events,  making  the  physical  only  the  objective  side  of  the 
mental.  But  instead  of  taking  this  position  the  spiritualist  went  off  to 
parallelism  to  prove  the  difference  between  mental  and  physical  on  the 
assumption  that  he  might  thus  defend  the  distinction  of  their  subjects, 
when  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation,  as  interpreted, 
made  it  unnecessary  to  have  different  subjects  in  order  to  preserve 
identity  through  change.  But  the  instinct  for  contradicting  an  oppo- 
nent's conception  of  the  case  was  too  strong  to  permit  the  suggestion,  of 
a  non  sequitur  in  the  materialist's  deduction,  and  the  argument  took 
the  form  of  insisting  on  the  difference  between  the  mental  and  physical 
as  a  ground  for  a  distinction  of  subjects.  The  inconsequence  of  this 
position  is  perfectly  clear.  A  difference  in  kind  of  qualities  is  not  a 
decisive  evidence  of  a  difference  of  subjects,  unless  we  assume  that  a 
simple  subject  can  have  only  one  attribute.  If  we  assume  Herbart's 
"  real  "as  the  true  conception  of  ultimate  reality,  we  should  have  a 
conception  in  which  the  presence  of  two  different  properties  in  the 
same  apparent  individual  would  have  to  be  treated  as  evidence  of  two 
"  reals  "  in  the  same  space  or  time,  and  even  physical  scientists  have 
occasionally  maintained  that  true  simplicity  of  atomic  structure 
requires   absolute  singleness  of   the  quality  determining  the  subject. 


454  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  it  is  usual  to  suppose  that  a  synthesis  or  complexus  of  qualities  is 
consistent  with  simplicity  of  subject.  This  is  unquestionably  correct 
for  sensible  individuality  and  continuity  within  the  limits  of  that  indi- 
viduality, and  whether  it  is  true  or  not  for  the  supersensible  is  not  a 
question  discussed  by  the  spiritualist.  He  virtually  concedes  that  a 
simple  subject  may  have  a  synthesis  of  qualities  which  may  be  different 
in  kind  and  does  not  see  that  this  concession  deprives  his  parallelistic 
argument  against  materialism  of  its  cogency.  All  that  his  parallelism 
can  even  profess  to  do  is  to  refute  the  identity  of  mental  and  physical 
"  phenomena  "  or  the  application  of  material  causation  to  their  relation, 
while  the  fact  that  qualitatively  different  attributes  may  inhere  in  the 
same  subject  defeats  the  inference  which  he  wishes  to  have  drawn  in 
favor  of  the  substantive  separation  between  mind  and  matter.  For  if 
a  complexus  of  differential  qualities  can  inhere  in  the  same  subject 
what  is  to  hinder  the  materialist,  after  correcting  the  conception 
of  the  conservation  of  energy  to  mean  identity  of  quantity  and  not 
identity  of  quality  in  change,  from  still  adhering  to  the  conten- 
tion that  consciousness  may  inhere  in  matter  side  by  side  with 
other  material  qualities  reducible,  if  you  like,  to  modes  of  motion? 
If  the  non-convertible  properties  of  extension,  density,  color,  so- 
norousness, hardness,  elasticity,  etc.,  may  inhere  in  the  same  sub- 
ject there  can  be  no  reason  to  deny  the  simultaneous  inhesion  of 
consciousness  in  it,  except  the  assumptions  that  all  the  properties 
of  matter  must  be  modes  of  motion  and  that  consciousness  is  not 
a  mode  of  motion.  Both  assumptions,  however,  are  not  proved  and 
may  not  be  provable.  All  that  we  know  is  that  there  is  a  differ- 
ence between  mental  and  physical  "phenomena"  as  observed,  not 
that  this  difference  is  the  difference  between  motional  and  non- 
motional  facts.  The  idealist  is  perfectly  helpless  here.  In  his  doc- 
trine that  "all  things  are  states  of  consciousness,"  or  that  "all  things 
can  be  known  only  in  terms  of  consciousness,"  if  this  language  is  to 
have  any  rational  meaning  whatever,  he  must  contend  that  motion  is  a 
state  of  consciousness  and  so  identify  the  mental  and  physical  in  kind 
and  deprive  himself  of  logical  grounds  of  opposition  to  materialism. 
In  fact,  the  strongest  possible  proof  of  the  materialist's  contention 
would  be  the  theory  of  idealism  identifying  the  mental  and  physical, 
so  that  idealism  would  either  have  to  accept  the  materialist's  con- 
clusion against  the  persistence  of  consciousness  or  insist  that  its  per- 
sistence is  consistent  with  materialism.  The  identity  between  the 
mental  and  physical  involved  in  the  two  theories  can  have  no  other 
outcome  and  opposition  between  them  is  securable  only  on  the  con- 


SPIRITUALISM.  455 

dition  that  they  divide  on  the  question  of  survival  after  death  while  they 
maintain  the  identity  of  the  mental  and  physical !  Hence  it  is  only 
the  man  who  insists  upon  the  validity  of  the  two  assumptions  that 
material  "phenomena"  are  all  modes  of  motion  and  that  mental 
"phenomena"  are  never  this,  that  can  consistently  maintain  the  ex- 
istence of  an  independent  subject  for  mental  states.  The  materialist, 
after  the  contention  of  Hobbes  and  others  that  all  physical  "  phe- 
nomena "  were  reducible  to  modes  of  motion,  had  applied  the  prin- 
ciple of  material  causation  or  the  transmission  of  energy  to  explain 
mental  "phenomena"  and  so  had  to  imply  that  they  were  conse- 
quently modes  of  motion.  Against  this  position  parallelism  might 
well  contend  if  it  succeeded  in  showing  that  mental  and  physical 
"phenomena"  were  not  interconvertible.  But  there  are  two  concep- 
tions of  materialism,  either  of  which  parallelism  does  not  effectively 
meet.  The  first  is  that  which  assumes  that  the  causal  nexus  between 
the  mental  and  physical  is  efficient  and  not  necessarily  or  wholly  ma- 
terial. The  second  is  that  which  insists  upon  our  introspective  in- 
ability to  determine  a  priori  the  nature  of  consciousness  beyond  the 
most  superficial  differences  between  it  and  physical  "phenomena"  in 
respect  of  their  relation  to  motion.  In  the  first  of  these  positions  ma- 
terialism does  not  have  to  decide  anything  one  way  or  the  other  about 
the  nature  of  consciousness,  whether  it  is  or  is  not  a  mode  of  motion. 
All  that  it  need  maintain  is  that  motion  or  any  other  material  action  as 
an  occasioning  cause  can  elicit  or  instigate  the  occurrence  of  con- 
sciousness which  may  be  treated  as  a  function  of  the  organism  in 
which  it  occurs,  just  as  physical  activities  may  instigate  the  occur- 
rence of  other  and  non-identical  activities  in  independent  material  sub- 
jects without  being  convertible  with  them,  especially  in  the  light  of  the 
internal  "forces"  which,  in  chemistry,  are  supposed  to  account  for 
qualitative  manifestations  that  are  not  transmutations  of  the  inciting 
agent.  Thus  I  may  light  a  candle  or  set  off  a  powder  magazine  by  a 
match  and  the-  effect  is  not  the  same  in  both  cases,  nor  is  it  the  mere 
transmission  or  transmutation  of  the  energy  in  the  match.  The  sub- 
ject in  which  the  event  occurs  and  the  "force"  that  it  contributes  to 
the  effect  is  an  important  factor  in  the  result,  so  that,  to  carry  out  the 
analogy,  the  occasioning  influence  of  an  external  physical  cause  may 
instigate  the  occurrence  of  consciousness  in  the  organism  without  con- 
stituting it  either  qualitatively  or  quantitatively,  and  the  organism 
might  be  the  agent  determining  the  nature  of  the  qualitative  reaction. 
This  view  is  not  answered  by  parallelism.  Neither  is  the  second  con- 
ception of  materialism  any  better  refuted.     All  that  introspection  can 


456  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

do  is  to  affirm  that  there  is  a  difference  between  the  mental  and  physi- 
cal in  their  sensible  forms  and  not  that  they  are  ultimately  opposed  in 
nature.  The  assumption  of  the  materialist,  when  he  conceives  all 
physical  "phenomena"  to  be  modes  of  motion,  is  that  this  identity  is 
supersensible.  He  concedes  the  apparent  differences.  He  may  be 
wrong  in  his  assumption  of  this  reduction.  With  that  I  have  nothing 
to  do,  because  any  disposition  to  question  it  must  rob  the  parallelist  of 
his  weapon  against  materialism,  since  the  assumption  that  absolute  dif- 
ferences of  qualities  in  a  material  subject  will  logically  defeat  the  argu- 
ment for  a  separate  subject  for  consciousness.  Hence  the  parallelist 
must  accept  the  materialist's  terms  in  regard  to  the  identity  at  the  basis 
of  physical  qualities,  in  order  to  gain  a  fulcrum  of  any  kind  against 
the  assumption  that  consciousness  is  a  mode  of  motion,  while  this  con- 
cession simply  opens  the  way  for  the  materialist  to  contend  that  the 
apparent  distinction  between  the  mental  and  physical  is  not  real  and 
that  their  identity  ultimately  is  quite  as  consistent  as  the  ultimate 
identity  of  different  material  qualities,  which  the  parallelist  has  to  con- 
cede in  order  to  secure  his  own  premises.  But  when  these  are  secured 
he  may  be  confronted  with  the  first  conception  of  materialism  which 
can  concede  that  consciousness  is  not  a  mode  of  motion  and  yet  main- 
tain that  it  is  the  resultant  of  composition  and  internal  "forces"  which 
are  not  the  transmuted  effect  of  stimulus. 

There  are  two  things  to  be  remembered  here,  though  they  have 
their  logical  value  and  cogency  determined  by  their  relation  to  existing 
assumptions  in  the  atomic  theory  of  matter.  The  present  general  con- 
ception of  the  atomic  theory  is  that  the  elements  are  qualitatively  dif- 
ferent and  yet  may  be  the  subjects  of  different  qualities.  That  is  to 
say,  it  is  assumed  that  simplicity  of  substance  is  not  incompatible  with 
complexity  of  attributes.  If  it  were  assumed  that  simplicity  of  sub- 
ject required  corresponding  simplicity,  or  singleness  of  qualities,  the 
two  things  to  which  attention  is  to  be  called  would  be  subject  to  quali- 
fication. But  as  the  case  of  .atomic  conceptions  now  stands  they 
represent  fundamental  postulates  which  determine  the  manner  of 
stating  the  two  criteria  of  judgment  on  the  question  of  single  and 
plural  realities.  The  first  thing,  however,  to  be  remembered  is  that  a 
general  diversity  in  kind  of  qualities  is  not  evidence  of  a  plurality  of 
subjects,  and  the  second  is  that  a  general  similarity  in  kind  of  qualities 
is  not  evidence  of  a  unity  of  subject.  Now  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  this 
latter  statement  is  admitted  to  be  a  truism,  while  the  former  does  not 
appear  to  be  so  truistic,  although  it  actually  is  such  in  the  light  of 
present  atomic  conceptions.      The  simple  reason  for  this  is  that  in  the 


SPIRITUALISM.  457 

very  conception  of  "similarity"  {cf.  table  of  categories,  p.  127) 
plurality  of  subjects  is  involved  and  no  one  would  think  of  supposing 
that  a  unity  or  singleness  of  subject  was  possible,  where  plurality  was 
the  condition  of  "  similarity  "  and  did  not  imply  mathematical  identity. 
But  the  habit  of  relying  upon  differences  in  physical  science  for  the 
suggestion  of  complexity  and  therefore  of  other  than  the  most  apparent 
subject  of  the  phenomenon  leads  to  the  tacit  assumption  that  differences 
imply  plurality  of  subjects.  But  the  admission  that  an  elementary  unit 
or  atom  may  be  the  subject  of  a  variety  of  properties  in  no  special 
respect  similar  to  each  other  deprives  the  fact  of  difference  of  its  evi- 
dential power  in  favor  of  plural  subjects.  Hence  plurality  of  centers 
of  reference  must  be  determined  by  some  other  criterion.  That  is  to 
say,  in  the  present  status  of  assumptions  characterizing  the  atomic  doc- 
trine, or  any  doctrine  of  elements,  plurality  of  realities  has  first  to  be 
established  in  order  to  make  the  application  of  diversity  of  qualities 
even  suggestive  of  plural  subjects,  and  until  that  plurality  has  been 
established  diversity  of  qualities  is  quite  consistent  with  unity  of  sub- 
ject. The  evidence  of  plurality  lies,  not  in  diversity  of  qualities,  but 
in  individuality,  or  independent  existence  in  space  and  time.  The 
only  conception  that  can  dispute  this  contention  is  that  of  Herbart  and 
of  such  atomists  as  may  identify  simplicity  of  substance  with  simplicity 
or  singleness  of  qualities.  On  that  assumption  alone  can  the  plurality 
of  subjects  be  proved  by  difference  of  qualities.  From  this  point  of 
view  materialism  would  be  forced  to  choose  between  making  all  atoms 
qualitatively  alike  and  modal  differences  the  effects  of  composition, 
and  making  them  qualitatively  different  to  the  extent  of  the  qualitative 
differences  of  "  phenomena."  Now  recently  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir 
William  Crookes  and  others  have  declared  for  the  possibility  of  the 
former  alternative  in  which  all  differences  in  "knowledge"  and 
"  reality"  are  modal  and  not  evidence  of  different  kinds  of  subjects. 
That  is  to  say,  they  declare  for  the  absolute  identity  in  kind  of  the 
atoms.  The  law  of  Mendelejeff,  and- other  "phenomena"  in  the 
classification  of  the  elements,  seem  to  favor  the  same  view,  because 
they  point  to  the  application  of  evolution  to  the  very  elements  and  sug- 
gest this  evolution  from  a  single  form  of  energy.  But  it  does  not 
matter  whether  this  ultimate  is  one  or  many,  whether  our  view  be 
pluralistic  or  monistic  (uno-monistic),  as  long  as  the  physicist  main- 
tains that  such  elements,  relative  or  absolute,  as  we  assume  to  the 
plural,  are  alike  in  kind  instead  of  being  qualitatively  different.  All 
qualitative  differences  would  have  to  be  explained  as  the  resultants  of 
composition.     That  is  clear.     We  have  seen,  however,  that  on  either 


45 S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  monistic  or  pluralistic  view  the  persistence  of  a  particular  mode  or 
"phenomenon"  will  depend  on  the  persistence  of  the  compound, 
assuming  the  pluralistic  position,  or  on  the  absence  of  change  or  meta- 
morphosis, on  the  monistic  view.  The  circumstance  that  change  is  a 
recognized  fact  for  both  points  of  view  shuts  out  spiritualism  from 
adopting  either  of  them  for  the  defence  of  the  persistence  of  conscious- 
ness, unless  it  could  qualify  metamorphosis  in  some  mysterious  way  to 
suit  its  requirements,  and  without  this  persistence  it  does  not  require 
to  controvert  the  materialistic  theory  for  any  practical  purposes.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  spiritualism  should  drive  atomic  materialism  into  the 
position  that  independent  subjects  must  be  coextensive  with  the  differ- 
ential qualities  of  things,  it  would  be  obliged  to  adopt  a  qualitative 
difference  between  the  atoms  which  would  be  far  greater  than  our 
present  atomic  theory  finds  necessary  in  limiting  it  to  the  seventy  or 
more  elements  and  make  each  atom  the  subject  of  a  single  quality, 
whether  similar  or  diverse  from  others.  This  would  necessitate  the 
adoption  of  a  separate  subject  for  each  species  of  mental  state  showing 
radically  differential  features,  and  the  spiritualist  would  be  no  better 
off  than  before,  as  the  consciousness  representing  his  personality  would 
have  been  dissolved  into  its  elements  and  have  no  identity  of  the  kind 
found  in  the  bodily  existence,  while  he  would  have  to  face  the  problem 
of  evolution  and  metamorphosis  for  each  individual  subject  in  the 
result,  even  when  he  assumed  that  consciousness  was  simple  and  not 
analyzable  into  specific  elements  constituting  a  class  or  collective  com- 
plex. It  will  not  help  to  say  that  the  fundamental  difference  is 
between  the  "phenomena"  of  motion  and  those  of  consciousness, 
assuming  that  the  subordinate  species  of  each  genus  of  mental  state, 
intellection,  emotion,  and  volition,  can  be  reduced  to  one  conferential 
function ;  for  I  do  not  see  that  the  distinction  between  intellect,  feel- 
ing, and  will,  or  between  the  several  types  of  mental  states  in  intellec- 
tion, sensation,  perception  and  reasoning,  involves  any  more  unity  of 
kind  than  the  several  functions  of  matter.  That  is,  I  do  not  see  that 
the  distinction  between  consciousness  and  motion  is  any  greater  than 
that  between  density  and  color,  both  of  which  are  assumed  to  be  modes 
of  motion,  and  on  the  conception  of  atomism  under  consideratioiyare 
assumed  to  justify  a  separation  of  subjects  for  each  differential  quality. 
If  this  suggestion  of  qualitatively  different  atoms,  caused  by  the  differ- 
ences of  attributes  in  matter  in  spite  of  their  classification  under  motion, 
be  either  necessary  or  possible,  equal  specific  differences  for  mental 
"  phenomena  "  must  point  to  the  same  conclusion,  and  the  assumption 
of  separate  simple  subjects  for  each  functional  aspect  of  the  organic 


SPIRITUALISM.  459 

complex  called  consciousness  would  leave  the  spiritualist  without  any 
advantage,  even  on  the  conception  of  Tertullian,  as  the  persistence  of 
each  individual  subject  would  not  preserve  personal  identity,  unless 
this  persistence  took  the  form  of  the  "  spiritual  body,"  when  the  ques- 
tion would  be  whether  this  persisted  or  not.  If  it  did  not  the  case 
would  stand  as  it  does  with  materialism.  Besides  the  conception  that 
all  qualitative  differences,  postulated  to  secure  a  major  premise  for  the 
independence  of  a  mental  subject  and  to  deprive  materialism  of  its 
appeal  to  resultants  of  composition  for  the  explanation  of  "phe- 
nomena," require  corresponding  differences  or  individuality  of  subjects, 
forbids  the  unification  of  differences  in  the  material  world  as  well  as 
in  the  mental,  so  that  we  should  have  to  place  motion  on  a  par  with 
other  qualities  of  matter  and  as  a  distinct  function  of  an  individual 
type  of  atoms,  so  that  some  atoms  would  have  no  motion  whatever. 
This  would  be  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  both  atomism  and  material- 
ism. On  the  other  hand,  the  admission  that  such  radical  differences 
as  density  and  color,  or  affinity  and  taste,  were  inhesive  qualities  of  the 
same  subject  would  at  least  suggest  a  doubt  about  the  right  to  dog- 
matize on  the  ultimate  differences  between  consciousness  and  motion. 
But  when  the  controversy  between  materialism  and  spiritualism  is 
reduced  to  the  question  which  I  have  just  been  discussing,  namely, 
whether  it  is  possible  to  conceive  that  consciousness  is  a  mode  of 
motion,  we  should  discover  either  that  the  problem  is  insoluble  or  that 
materialism  would  prove  itself  elastic  enough  to  change  its  contention 
and  take  some  other  assumption  for  its  base.  We  must  not  forget 
that  the  whole  force  of  the  demand  for  a  mental  subject  other  than  the 
organism,  as  made  by  parallelism,  depends  wholly  upon  the  assump- 
tions that  all  "  phenomena"  of  matter  are  modes  of  motion,  a  position 
often  taken  by  materialism,  as  in  Hobbes,  and  that  consciousness  is  not  a 
mode  of  motion,  the  position  taken  by  parallelism.  The  first  of  these 
assumptions  is  conceded  by  the  parallelist,  if  only  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, and  the  second  assumption  affirmed  in  order  to  escape  materialism 
which  assumes  that  consciousness  is  a  mode  of  motion.  But  there  is 
no  more  evidence  for  the  materialist's  assumption  than  there  is  for  the 
parallelisms.  Both  can  be  disputed,  as  is  shown  by  the  various  posi- 
tions and  theories  concerning  the  simplicity  or  complexity  of  atoms, 
where  the  possibility  of  classifying  qualities  does  not  affect  the  opinions 
of  speculators  and  where  difference  rather  *than  identity  controls  the 
intellectual  tendency.  Besides  there  is  no  rigid  necessity  for  materialism 
to  suppose  that  all  "  phenomena  "  of  matter  are  modes  of  motion.  It 
had  differences  to  account  for  in  some  way  even  when  supposing  that 


460  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

all  material  "  phenomena"  are  reducible  to  motion  of  some  kind,  and 
it  cannot  treat  these  differences  as  "  motion"  which  is  the  conferentia, 
but  as  either  a  concomitant  factor  as  something  attached  to  "  motion," 
which  is  the  identical  element  in  the  "phenomenon."  Consequently, 
we  have  attached  to  its  assumption  of  unity  a  distinction  that  prevents 
this  unity  from  being  universal  or  absolute.  This  once  recognized 
simply  leads  to  the  result  that  there  are  functions  of  physical  realities 
that  are  not  modes  of  motions,  though  we  admit  that  all  which  pro- 
duce effects  may  be  modes  of  motion,  and  if  once  the  admission  of 
functions  that  are  not  motion  be  admitted  there  would  be  no  difficulty 
in  supposing  consciousness  to  be  among  them.  Parallelism  would 
then  be  reduced  to  the  choice  between  supposing  that  the  qualitative 
differences  of  "  phenomena  "  indicated  required  the  existence  of  atoms 
coextensive  with  the  differences  associated  with  motion  in  a  complex 
organism,  to  save  the  persistence  of  consciousness,  and  supposing  that 
similar  differences  between  mental  states  demand  equally  different 
subjects,  an  assumption  that  would  require  us  to  maintain  the  integ- 
rity of  a  "  spiritual "  organism  in  order  to  sustain  the  unity  and  multi- 
plicity of  consciousness  as  we  know  it.  How  he  would  sustain  the 
integrity  of  such  an  organism  any  more  than  he  can  that  of  the  ma- 
terial organism  no  one  can  see.  If  he  could  insist  that  consciousness 
was  an  absolutely  simple  thing,  a  view  clear  enough  in  its  intension 
or  abstract  qualitative  import,  only  one  indivisible  atom  would  be 
required  to  support  it.  But  the  term  denotes  a  whole  genus  of 
specific  states  in  the  extensive  or  concrete  quantitative  import  and 
would  have  to  be  treated  as  similar  terms  in  the  conception  of  material 
"phenomena"  have  to  be  treated.  But  grant  that  consciousness  is 
simple  and  not  a  generic  concept,  with  differential  associations  that 
might  be  used  to  demand  the  existence  of  Herbart's  "  reals"  for  each 
difference,  the  case  would  not  be  altered,  since  the  reducibility  of  dif- 
ferential qualities  in  material  "phenomena"  to  modes  of  motion  is 
supposably  compatible  with  very  radical  apparent  differences  that 
might  admit  the  same  reduction  of  consciousness,  as  the  motion  which 
unifies  the  sensible  differences  in  the  material  world  is  quite  as  super- 
sensible a  thing  to  conception  or  imagination  as  consciousness  can  be. 
Moreover,  if  materialism  were  pushed  by  the  logic  of  the  case  to 
abandon  its  assumption  that  all  "phenomena"  of  matter  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  case  must  be  modes  of  motion,  a  position  which  has 
all  along  been  purely  a  priori  and  without  evidence,  as  a  condition  of 
denying  the  persistence  of  consciousness  after  death,  it  would  be  found 
quite  equal  to  the  emergency,  as  philosophic  theories  are  capable  of 


SPIRITUALISM.  46 1 

almost  anything  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  the  consistency  of  their 
traditional  phraseology.  It  is  easy  to  shift  one's  position  and  to  main- 
tain the  same  phrases  without  the  discovery  of  our  conversion.  Plus 
il  change  plus  il  est  la  meme  chose  is  a  maxim  that  well  expresses 
many  of  the  intellectual  movements  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  The 
success  of  parallelism  depends  upon  accepting  the  materialist's  assump- 
tion that  all  physical  "  phenomena  "  are  modes  of  motion  and  deny- 
ing this  reduction  of  consciousness,  while  the  materialist  might  at  any 
time  have  the  courage  to  give  up  his  unnecessary  assumption  and 
leave  the  whole  ad  rem  argument  to  the  parallelist  whose  duty  it 
would  be  to  prove  both  assumptions  as  a  condition  of  having  any 
premise  to  begin  with  against  the  extension  of  materialism  to  explain 
all  differential  "phenomena"  without  handicapping  itself  with  their 
reduction  to  the  modes  of  motion,  but  simply  assuming  that  it  has 
differences  to  account  for  in  any  case. 

I  have  gone  thus  into  the  analysis  and  discussion  of  parallelism  and 
the  ramifications  of  materialistic  controversy  and  theory  because  paral- 
lelism has  been  the  last  resort  and  defence  of  the  spiritualistic  view  in 
recent  years,  and  because  I  regard  it  as  wholly  inadequate  and  irrele- 
vant to  the  problem.  It  obtains  its  whole  force  from  its  a  priori  as- 
sumptions and  its  ad  hominem  argument,  both  of  which  are  liable  to 
overthrow  at  any  time,  the  first  by  the  demand  for  evidence  which  has 
not  been  and  cannot  be  furnished  and  the  second  by  the  materialist's 
abandonment  of  his  major  premise  and  the  adoption  of  another  with 
the  same  conclusion  as  before.  Hence  I  do  not  regard  parallelism  as 
an  adequate  defence  of  spiritualism  in  any  form.  It  is  no  doubt  quite 
true  that,  if  mind  and  matter  are  different  kinds  of  substance  or  differ- 
ent kinds  of  subjects,  as  they  would  have  to  be  in  order  to  justify  the 
use  of  two  terms  assumed  not  to  be  synonymous  in  any  sense,  their 
qualities  would  be  different.  But  the  fact  that  qualities  are  different 
from  each  other  is  not  a  conclusive  evidence  of  a  difference  of  subjects, 
and  we  might  show  as  much  as  we  please  that  physical  "  phenomena" 
were  not  convertible  with  the  mental,  unless  we  at  the  same  time 
showed  a  complete  interconvertibility  of  physical  "phenomena"  with 
each  other  there  would  be  nothing  to  prevent  materialism  from  denying 
the  universality  of  material  conversion  and  extending  its  principle  to 
the  relation  between  the  mental  and  physical,  making  them  both  func- 
tions of  the  same  subject  without  reciprocal  or  other  convertibility. 
The  existence  of  non-convertible  "  phenomena"  in  the  material  world, 
representing  qualitative  changes  not  explained  by  the  conservation  of 
energy,  which,   when  properly  defined,  applies    only  to    quantitative 


462  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

identity  in  change,  and  the  compatibility  of  this  non-convertibility  of 
attributes  with  the  unity  and  identity  of  subject,  make  it  equally  pos- 
sible that  mental  events  might  be  functions  of  the  organism  without 
contradicting  the  conservation  of  energy,  and  in  this  case  parallelism 
would  have  no  claims  against  materialism.  The  possibilities  being 
equal  for  and  against  a  plurality  of  subjects  there  is  no  other  course 
open  than  to  endeavor  to  solve  the  problem  by  ascertaining  whether  it 
is  a  fact  that  consciousness  exists  independently  of  the  bodily  organism, 
as  the  attempt  to  decide  it  by  determining  its  nature  only  results  in  a 
priori  speculations  which  are  as  good  on  one  side  as  on  the  other,  and 
being  mutually  opposed  simply  nullify  each  other. 

I  am  not  disputing  the  natural  impressiveness  of  the  appeal  to  the 
difference  between  mental  and  physical  "phenomena,"  as  we  know 
them,  for  evidence  of  plural  or  dual  subjects.  I  am  only  disputing 
the  right  to  depend  upon  it  as  in  any  way  conclusive  or  to  connect  it 
with  the  denial  of  material  causality  between  the  mental  and  physical 
as  the  sole  source  of  reliance  for  its  conclusion  when  the  supposition  of 
efficient  causal  nexus  between  them  has  not  been  met  and  which  is  all 
that  materialism  needs  for  its  vindication.  It  is  the  possibility  of  this 
last  conception,  that  of  efficient  causes,  and  their  connection  with  the 
influence  of  internal  action  of  the  organism  which  modern  science  con- 
ceives very  differently  from  antiquity,  that  opens  a  way  for  the  ma- 
terialistic theory  which  parallelism  cannot  meet.  It  simply  accepts 
this  parallelism  and  converts  it  into  a  defence  of  materialism.  We 
have  the  whole  field  of  chemistry  and  physiology  and  what  they  have 
established  to  deal  with  in  the  problem.  The  marvelous  metamor- 
phoses of  matter  exhibited  by  chemistry  illustrating  the  appearance  of 
new  qualities  due  to  composition,  or  even  due  only  to  variations  of 
conditions  without  composition,  as  in  allotropism,  and  without  new 
elements  in  a  compound,  as  in  isomerism,  or  metals  in  liquid  air  and 
the  equally  marvelous  functions  of  a  physiological  organism  which  are 
not  consciousness  within  the  accepted  meaning  of  that  term, — all  these 
show  that  we  have  before  us  a  problem  quite  different  from  that  of 
early  Christianity.  The  traditional  relation  between  the  "soul"  and 
the  body  was  that  of  a  tenant  and  was  as  old  as  Plato,  and  was  even 
that  of  Epicurus  and  the  materialists.  This  relation  was  conceived  as 
a  "mechanical"  relation,  according  to  the  terms  of  chemical  usage, 
one  that  would  not  involve  any  change  of  character  or  metamorphosis 
either  in  the  proximity  of  another  element  or  in  the  separation  from  it. 
With  such  an  artificial  conception  before  it,  the  most  natural  tendency 
of  the  human  mind  would  be  to  determine  a  difference  of  subjects  by 


SPIRITUALISM.  463 

a  difference  of  "  phenomena"  associated  in  the  same  collective  whole, 
especially  if  any  special  moral  or  religious  ideas  and  hopes  were  inter- 
ested in  the  result.  But  the  moment  that  chemistry  and  physiology 
came  in  with  their  conception  of  "an  organic  as  distinct  from  that  of  a 
collective  whole,  a  view  much  less  nearly  allied  to  the  old  "  mechani- 
cal "  composition  of  the  ancient  materialists,  which  was  apparently  in- 
sufficient to  explain  all  the  "phenomena,"  the  case  was  altered.  In 
the  entire  organic  world  of  living  beings  and  the  inorganic  world  of 
chemical  compounds,  science  has  found  a  system  of  metamorphoses 
due  to  chemical  laws  that  exhibit  almost  any  capacity  to  exercise  func- 
tions or  manifest  attributes  not  found  in  the  elements.  This  is  a  con- 
ception that  is  wholly  independent  of  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation 
of  energy,  because  the  facts  represent  qualitative  changes  for  which 
there  is  no  pretense  of  explanation  by  that  doctrine.  It  is  not  thought 
for  one  moment  that  material  causation  applies  to  these  qualitative 
modifications  of  matter,  and  the  limitations  which  the  fact  imposes 
upon  the  theory  of  conservation  confine  it  to  the  quantitative  identity 
of  the  "mechanical"  forces  and  qualitative  or  metamorphic  changes 
remain  outside  its  purview  and  action,  involving  conceptions  that  no 
amount  of  refutation  directed  against  material  causation  can  reach. 
Now  parallelism  cannot  pretend  to  meet  the  objections  created  by  this 
conception  of  causal  change,  involving  as  it  does  the  idea  of  external 
efficient  action  and  internal  reaction  or  metamorphosis.  All  that  it 
could  question  was  the  alleged  material  identity  between  mental  and 
physical  "phenomena."  It  is  true  that,  as  already  admitted,  this 
would  be  an  overthrow  of  the  "mechanical"  philosophy  which  af- 
firmed that  identity,  but  only  in  so  far  as  that  philosophy  was  made 
convertible  with  material  causation.  Since  materialism?  however,  in 
its  last  analysis  does  not  depend  wholly  upon  a  material  causal  nexus 
between  mental  and  physical  events,  the  spiritualist  has  to  meet  the 
new  conception  which  is  founded  upon  qualitative  metamorphosis  and 
which  is  presumably  not  the  result  of  transmission  or  conservation. 
This  new  position  assumes  that  consciousness  might  as  easily  be  an  in- 
cident or  resultant,  "  epiphenomenon,"  of  composition  as  any  other 
qualitative  modification,  especially  if  materialism  should  abandon  the 
reduction  of  physical  "phenomena"  to  modes  of  motion  and  suppose 
that  matter  is  capable  of  functions  not  conceived  as  motion  in  any 
form. 

Parallelism  thus  fails  to  achieve  its  desired  victory  simply  because 
materialism  depends  upon  more  than  one  assumption.  As  has  already 
been    remarked    when   discussing   materialism    (p.  402),   the  proper 


464  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

course  of  parallelism  was  not  to  have  denied  the  materialist's  applica- 
tion of  "  mechanical "  or  material  causation,  but  to  have  pressed  its 
ad  hominem  value  for  logical  deductions  which  were  just  the  contrary 
of  what  the  materialist  supposed,  instead  of  conceding  an  assumption 
about  the  reducibility  of  all  physical  "  phenomena  "  to  modes  of  motion 
which  ought  never  to  have  been  granted  and  instead  of  accepting  respon- 
sibility for  an  ad  rem  argument  to  prove  that  consciousness  was  not  such 
a  mode,  a  negative  proposition  which  can  never  be  proved.  In  other 
words  the  parallelist  ought  to  have  exposed  the  contradiction  between 
the  materialist's  principle  and  his  conclusion,  the  first  being  different 
from  and  the  second  being  the  same  as  the  old  materialism.  The  meta- 
morphosis of.  the  old  materialism  having  been  abandoned  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  conservation  of  energy  the  same  conclusion  should  not 
have  been  drawn.  The  parallelist  should  have  accepted  the  challenge 
which  the  conservation  of  energy  presented  and  instead  of  trying  to 
limit  it  he  should  have  pressed  its  necessary  consequences,  applying 
it  with  the  universality  which  was  claimed  for  it  and  thus  insisted  that 
the  qualitative  changes'  involved  in  the  process  of  evolution  involved  no 
loss  of  identity  whatever  on  the  theory,  and  hence  that  consciousness  was 
as  much  an  element  of  the  antecedent  as  the  antecedent,  motion,  was 
an  element  of  consciousness.  The  assumption  of  material  causation 
with  its  implication  of  identity  between  the  two  terms  of  the  series 
would  have  obliged  the  materialist  to  admit  in  the  antecedent  the  same 
fact  that  he  found  in  the  consequent.  There  would  have  been  abso- 
lutely no  escape  from  this  conclusion  short  of  an  abandonment  of  the 
qualitative  interpretation  of  the  conservation  of  energy.  The  materi- 
alist cannot  apply  material  causation  or  identity  to  the  relation  between 
physical  and  mental  "phenomena,"  or  motion  and  consciousness, 
without  accepting  in  it  the  full  meaning  of  consciousness,  the  second 
term  of  the  series,  as  well  as  the  physical,  the  first  term,  that  is,  without 
admitting  that  the  physical  is  as  much  of  the  nature  of  consciousness  as 
the  mental  is  of  the  nature  of  motion.  The  last  term  in  the  series  of  evo- 
lution, on  the  theory  of  conservation,  has  at  least  as  much  significance  as 
the  first  and  actually  must  be  said  to  have  been  contained  in  it,  so  that 
the  materialist  cannot  admit  a  qualitative  difference  of  any  kind  between 
the  terms  of  this  series  without  giving  up  the  universality  of  his  ex- 
planatory principle.  He  cannot,  on  the  theory  of  conservation  inter- 
preted as  implying  qualitative  identity  between  the  antecedent  and 
consequent,  exclude  consciousness  from  motion  and  introduce  it  as 
a  new  moment  in  the  series.  He  must  make  as  much  of  con- 
sciousness   as    motion    and    treat    their    identity   as    his   principle   re- 


SPIRITUALISM.  465 

quires,  instead  of  implying  their  identity  in  one  breath  and  denying 
it  in  another. 

But  when  materialism  was  pressed  with  the  difficulties  of  its  doc- 
trine its  advocates  frankly  limited,  its  application  to  the  quantitative 
identity  of  antecedent  and  consequent,  and  admitted  that  it  did  not 
explain  qualitative  change  or  imply  qualitative  identity  between  the 
terms  of  the  series  causally  related.  Parallelism  is  thus  eviscerated  of 
its  entire  cogency.  As  soon  as  this  concession  was  made  and  materi- 
alism based  upon  the  possibility  of  the  qualitative  changes  to  internal 
"  forces  "  in  composition,  it  was  not  refutable  by  any  denial  of  the 
universality  of  the  conservation  of  energy  or  material  causation.  The 
parallelist  had  taken  precisely  the  course  opposite  to  that  calculated  to 
defend  the  theory  he  was  opposing.  It  was  simply  because  the  con- 
servation of  energy  did  not  apply  qualitatively  to  antecedent  and 
consequent  that  consciousness  might  be  a  function  of  the  physical  or- 
ganism as  the  subject  in  which  alone  it  occurred,  at  least  in  so  far  as 
the  evidence  was  concerned.  If  it  had  been  merely  the  transferred 
"phenomenon"  of  the  external  agent,  retaining  its  identity  in  its 
transitions,  it  would  require  no  identical  subject  for  its  own  nature 
and  persistence,  but  would  be  an  eternal  mode  of  action  without  regard 
to  a  change  of  subjects  through  which  it  was  transmitted.  A  doctrine 
of  reincarnation  might  be  conceivable  on  this  assumption,  though  it 
might  be  unlike  the  systems  actually  adopted.  Of  course  this  trans- 
mission from  subject  to  subject  would  imply  an  eternal  past  for  the 
individual  consciousness  and  so  would  be  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
there  is  no  mnemonic  unity  or  connection  between  consequent  and  an- 
tecedent, a  fact  which  ought  not  to  exist  on  the  supposition  of  qualita- 
tive identity  and  which  actually  disproves  that  identity,  reinstating  the 
old  problem  of  qualitative  change  and  admitting  no  other  type  of  iden- 
tity and  persistence  than  Plato's  transmigration  or  reincarnation  with 
metempsychosis,  a  conclusion  which  abandons  both  the  qualitative  con- 
servation of  energy  and  the  permanence  of  personal  identity. 

The  real  force  and  meaning  of  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  whether  qualitatively  or  quantitatively  interpreted,  was  due  to 
its  controversion  of  the  theory  of  creation  applied  to  matter  and  motion, 
and  not  to  its  controversion  of  either  the  existence  or  the  persistence  of 
mind  other  than  the  organism.  I  have  just  indicated  that  the  logical 
consequenee  of  a  thoroughgoing  doctrine  of  conservation  results  in  the 
affirmation  of  an  eternal  consciousness  in  the  past  as  well  as  future,  but 
that,  apparently  agreeable  as  this  might  seem  to  the  spiritualist's  desire 
to  protect  the  persistence  of  consciousness,  it  was  in  conflict  with  the 
30 


466  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

fact  that  there  was  no  mnemonic  connection  between  the  past  and 
present  and  no  promise  of  any  between  the  present  and  future,  so  that 
what  the  spiritualist  might  gain  by  an  ad  hominem  argument  with  the 
materialist  he  lost  by  consideration  of  the  facts  and  simply  created  an 
issue  which  both  parties  had  to  face  in  the  consideration  of  a  doctrine 
that  did  not  meet  the  demand  made  upon  it.  What  the  parallelist 
ought  to  have  seen  was  that  the  materialist's  theory  of  the  conservation 
of  energy  controverted  the  creation  of  matter  and  motion  without  neces- 
sarily controverting  the  persistence  of  consciousness  which  followed  as  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  doctrine.  All  that  the  facts  would  prove 
was  the  inconsistency  of  this  conclusion  with  them  and  the  error  of  the 
materialist's  assumption  about  material  causation,  nullifying  the  univer- 
sality of  his  theory  of  conservation  and  simply  opening  the  way  for  scep- 
ticism regarding  the  persistence  of  consciousness.  The  business  of  the 
parallelist  was  to  refute  materialism  by  its  consequences,  not  by  a  denial 
of  its  premises.  The  spiritualist's  problem  is  the  persistence  of  con- 
sciousness without  regard  to  the  question  of  creation,  and  he  has  the  doc- 
trine of  inertia  in  his  favor,  this  doctrine  being  one  form  of  conservation. 
The  doctrine  of  inertia  is  that  a  body  remains  in  its  present  condition 
whether  of  motion  or  rest,  unless  exposed  to  external  interference. 
There  is  no  necessity  on  this  assumption  of  an  eternal  past  in  order  to 
secure  immortality,  but  only  of  a  present  existence  and  assurance  that 
there  is  nothing  to  interfere  with  the  continuance  of  it.  The  authors  of 
the  "  Unseen  U?iiverse"  maintained  that  what  had  a  beginning  must 
necessarily  have  an  end,  but  this  is  flatly  in  contradiction  with  their 
doctrine  of  inertia  which  does  not  deny  a  beginning  but  admits  the  pos- 
sibility of  a  permanence  after  a  beginning,  if  there  is  no  external  inter- 
ference to  prevent  it.  It  avails  nothing  to  say  that  there  is  always  an 
external  interference,  because  this  is  a  question  of  fact  and  not  necessity. 
It  is  simply  a  question  of  fact  whether  a  cause  interferes  with  the  present 
order  to  discontinue  it,  so  that  spiritualism  is  independent  of  the  for- 
tunes of  a  theory  of  creation,  which  involves  a  beginning  but  not 
necessarily  an  end,  unless  the  doctrine  of  inertia  is  abandoned.  Its 
position  had  to  be  consistent  with  the  fact  that  there  is  no  mnemonic 
unity  of  consciousness  with  a  past  presupposed  by  the  assumptions  of 
the  conservation  of  energy,  and  it  had  only  to  use  the  doctrine  of  inertia 
to  prevent  an  absolute  denial  of  its  possibility  in  spite  of  creation,  while 
it  could  also  use  the  absence  of  this  mnemonic  unity  with  the  past  to 
controvert  the  implications  of  the  materialist's  doctrine  of  material 
causation,  though  he  has  no  interest  but  this  fact  in  controverting  it. 
It  was  the  extension  of  the  idea  of  indestructibility  to  motion  after  it 


SPITITUALISM.  467 

had  been  proved  of  matter  that  gave  the  theory  of  conservation  its 
meaning  against  the  notion  of  creation.  As  long  as  science  had  proved 
only  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  the  way  was  open  to  maintain,  at 
least  a  priori,  that  motion  had  a  beginning  and  in  this  way  sustain  the 
theistic  origin  of  the  "  phenomenal"  world,  according  to  the  Aristote- 
lian conception  of  the  case,  in  the  orderly  adjustment  and  collocation 
of  cosmic  realities.  But  the  conservation  of  energy,  even  on  its  merely 
quantitative  interpretation,  at  least  appeared  to  contradict  all  concep- 
tions of  a  creation,  and  if  it  assumed  that  qualitative  changes  were  due 
to  the  action  of  internal  "forces,"  it  required  no  such  creation  as  the 
theist  maintained,  as  the  quantity  of  energy  was  eternal  and  the  quali- 
tative changes  assumed  were  not  due  to  a  foreign  initial  act  with  the 
supposition  of  inertia  afterward  to  sustain  an  unchanged  order.  The 
materialist  simply  appropriated  a  kind  of  creatio  continua  which  the 
theist  should  never  have  permitted  him  to  assume.  But  having  dis- 
covered the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  motion,  in  some  sense  of  the 
term,  this  result  seemed  to  make  the  spiritualistic  theory  of  absolute 
genesis,  in  its  theistic  assumptions,  unnecessary,  and  as  the  materialistic 
theory  was  the  only  alternative,  all  the  implications  associated  with  it, 
both  theistic  and  psychological,  were  assumed  without  reflection  to  fol- 
low. These  implications  were  a  purely  ' '  mechanical  "  interpretation  of 
physical  "  phenomena"  and  the  subordination  of  consciousness  to  the 
material  organism  as  a  function  of  it.  In  accepting  this  conclusion 
several  things  were  forgotten  :  ( i )  that  the  only  reason  for  assuming  a 
permanent  immaterial  reality  was  the  assumption  that  both  the  sensible 
and  supersensible  worlds  of  matter  were  transient ;  (2)  that  the  reason 
for  assuming  an  immaterial  reality  for  the  support  of  consciousness  was 
the  interest  in  preserving  its  persistence  while  matter  was  made  a  created 
and  perishable  thing;  (3)  that  the  doctrine  of  inertia  made  the  per- 
sistence of  consciousness  consistent  with  the  idea  of  creation  or  a  begin- 
ning in  time  and  rendered  it  unnecessary  to  postulate  the  eternity  of  the 
subject  of  consciousness  in  the  past  as  a  condition  of  its  persistence  in 
the  future  ;  (4)  that  when  matter  and  motion  were  discovered,  through 
the  conservation  of  energy,  to  be  permanent,  there  was  no  reason  for 
insisting  upon  the  existence  of  an  immaterial  mind  or  substance  as  a 
condition  of  the  persistence  of  consciousness,  and  that  either  the  posi- 
tion of  Tertullian  or  that  of  the  "  spiritual  body  "  afforded  as  good  an 
a  priori  basis  for  the  philosophic  doctrine  as  the  one  of  an  immaterial 
psychical  substance  actually  adopted.  Spiritualism  ought  to  have  shown 
itself  quite  as  elastic  as  its  opponent  has  been,  but  when  defeated  at  one 
point  it  has  simply  invented  some  new  hypothesis  worse  than  the  first 


46S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  kept  up  a  controversy  when  it  might  have  deftly  applied  the  logic 
of  materialism  to  its  own  assumptions  and  either  to  have  gotten  spiritual- 
istic conclusions  within  materialistic  doctrines  or  to  have  shown  that 
these  consequences  were  incompatible  with  the  facts,  and  thus  to  have 
thrown  upon  materialism  the  burden  of  proof  instead  of  accepting  this 
unenviable  task  itself. 

But  it  was  precisely  because  qualitative  changes  and  modifications 
were  not  explained  by  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  principle  of 
identity  at  the  basis  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  motion,  that 
some  theory  of  genesis,  whether  cosmic  or  psychological,  was  made 
logically  possible  and  imperative.  Whether  a  cosmic  creation  was 
probable  or  not,  there  were  but  two  alternatives  open  in  the  case,  after 
the  necessary  admission  that  personal  identity  had  no  past  existence. 
They  were:  (i)  the  creation  of  the  soul  by  God  as  something  not 
self-existent,  and  (2)  the  explanation  of  consciousness  as  a  function  of 
organization.  The  first,  with  the  assumption  of  inertia  permitted  a 
natural  immortality,  and  the  second  would  not  permit  it  on  any  suppo- 
sition but  a  theory  of  a  physical  resurrection.  Both  points  of  view 
made  the  result  wholly  contingent  and  provisional,  either  of  them  per- 
fectly consistent  with  its  annihilation,  so  that  the  last  resort  for  sur- 
vival after  death  was  proof  of  the  fact,  and  not  its  necessity  from 
premises  which  were  either  extremely  dubious  or  inconclusive,  if  true. 
That  is  to  say,  qualitative  changes  either  from  internal  "forces"  of  the 
organism  or  from  the  immediate  action  of  God  offered  suggestions  of 
transiency  either  from  necessity  or  the  will  of  the  creator,  so  that  a 
natural  immortality  consonant  with  a  theory  of  creation  would  have  to 
prove  a  subject  other  than  the  brain  to  obtain  its  conclusion,  a  super- 
natural theory  of  a  resurrection  being  required  upon  the  materialistic 
assumption  that  consciousness  was  a  function  of  the  organism.  And 
hence  the  only  way  to  prove  the  existence  of  this  independent  subject 
would  be  to  prove  the  fact  that  consciousness  survived  death,  allowing 
the  independence  of  its  subject  to  go  as  a  matter  of  consequence,  and 
not  to  insist  merely  upon  the  "  phenomenal "  difference  between  men- 
tal and  physical  qualities,  both  of  which  might  be  the  resultant  of 
organization,  whether  natural  or  supernatural,  and  without  qualitative 
identity  in  causal  changes  the  transmission  of  consciousness  intact  to 
other  subjects  would  not  occur. 

In  another  connection  I  shall  raise  the  question  whether  the  doc- 
trine of  the  conservation  is  even  quantitatively  true  in  the  sense  of 
identity  between  the  terms  of  the  causal  series,  and  whether  the  meta- 
physics of  modern  science  can  even  maintain  that  even  matter  and 


SPIRITUALISM.    '  469 

motion  are  indestructible.  It  will  suffice  here,  however,  keeping  this 
sceptical  question  in  abeyance  or  in  reservation,  to  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  its  advocates  had  to  concede  its  incapacity  for  explaining 
qualitative  changes,  and  then  merely  to  suggest  that  its  quantitative  in- 
terpretation may  be  subject  to  revision  and  modification.  It  will  be 
apparent,  therefore,  that  if  the  whole  theory  of  conservation  be  ques- 
tionable the  materialistic  theory  gains  everything,  provided  that  it 
remains  by  the  theory  of  efficient  causation  and  qualitative  subjective 
changes  and  metamorphoses,  except  that  it  will  be  exposed  to  theistic 
attack,  on  the  ground  that  inertia  will  admit  no  increase  of  energy  or 
result  in  a  "  mechanical"  system.  But  with  no  necessity  for  maintain- 
ing the  conservation  of  energy  either  quantitatively  or  qualitatively  and 
with  an  elastic  interpretation  of  efficient  causation  it  might  limit  the 
application  of  inertia  to  the  "phenomena"  of  motion,  while  the  the- 
istic position  would  throw  the  whole  responsibility  for  the  outcome  of 
the  process  of  evolution  upon  the  character  and  the  plan  of  the  creator. 
It  is  especially  noticeable,  however,  that  parallelism  has  not  exer- 
cised itself  vigorously  in  behalf  of  a  theistic  solution  of  the  problem. 
It  was  concerned  with  a  "  naturalistic"  theory  of  it,  and  so  based  its 
argument  upon  a  decision  regarding  the  nature  of  consciousness  and 
its  relation  to  physical  causation.  The  reason  for  taking  this  course 
is  a  simple  one.  Any  other  view  required  it  to  assume  that  con- 
sciousness was  a  function  of  the  organism  and  perished  with  it,  unless 
a  theory  of  a  physical  resurrection  could  be  maintained.  This  latter 
view  involved  the  proof  of  a  theistic  theory  of  the  cosmos,  or  at  least 
of  the  organism,  and  the  intervention  of  the  creator  to  reproduce  at 
some  time  after  death  the  conditions  which  would  render  possible  re- 
occurrence of  the  consciousness  that  has  been  suspended  during  the 
interval  more  or  less  prolonged.  This  view  might  recommend  itself 
to  an  age  which  believed  in  ' '  cycles  "  of  existence  repeating  the  past 
in  all  its  details,  but  it  could  not  be  very  acceptable  to  an  age  in  which 
progress  and  evolution  with  their  implication  of  increments  of  gain 
and  advance  were  the  primary  assumptions.  Hence  there  was  no 
recourse  but  to  try  some  view  which  made  the  survival  of  conscious- 
ness a  natural  consequence  of  the  dissolution  of  the  organism  when  its 
subject  was  spiritual  and  either  not  material  or  not  a  composite  dis- 
solvable organism.  But  I  have  indicated  enough  to  show  that  I  do 
not  regard  the  method  of  parallelism  as  either  adequate  or  legitimate 
for  proving  the  existence  of  a  mental  subject  other  than  the  organism 
and  that  at  best  it  can  have  but  an  ad  hominem  value  for  pressing 
.assumptions  which  are  not  proved.     It  will  require    more  evidence 


47©  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

than  the  a  priori  and  introspective  assertion  that  consciousness  is 
neither  a  mode  of  motion  nor  possibly  a  resultant  of  organic  composi- 
tion to  settle  this  problem.  I  grant  that  the  differences  which  it  ob- 
serves and  emphasizes  between  mental  and  physical  "phenomena" 
are  entitled  to  some  weight  in  the  formation  of  convictions,  because 
the  contrast  between  the  two  kinds  of  events  is  so  great.  I  am  not  at 
all  impressed  with  any  such  relation  between  them  as  the  identity  of  their 
subject  might  seem  to  imply.  If  I  were  asked  whether  I  believed  that 
consciousness  was  a  mode  of  motion  I  would  say  that  I  did  not  believe  it 
and  that  I  could  not  conceive  how  it  should  be.  But  I  should  also 
say  that  I  did  not  know  what  it  might  be.  I  have  to  remind  myself 
that  it  was  not  long  ago  in  history  when  men  thought  that  it  was  im- 
possible that  sound  and  color  were  subjective  events  and  that  it  was 
absurd  to  suppose  that,  objectively  considered,  they  were  mere  vibra- 
tions. But  it  has  turned  out  that  what  was  assumed  to  be  absurd  and 
false  is  a  fact  and  not  absurd  at  all,  at  least  as  now  understood.  Be- 
sides if  the  parallelist  can  conceive  with  the  physicist  that  all  physical 
"  phenomena  "  are  reducible  to  modes  of  motion,  in  spite  of  the  radi- 
cal differences  between  them,  he  might  have  some  humility  in  regard 
to  the  nature  of  consciousness,  after  the  experience  of  a  priori  and 
introspective  opinion  with  sound  and  color.  The  sensible  is  tran- 
scended in  one  case  and  may  be  possible  in  the  other,  so  that  the  sen- 
sible conception  of  consciousness  as  a  "  phenomenon"  may  not  be  the 
final  one.  Hence  I  do  not  see  adequate  reasons  for  being  dogmatic  in 
my  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  consciousness.  I  am  even  willing 
to  concede  that  such  differences  as  we  actually  observe  may  incline 
toward  the  belief  of  an  independent  subject  for  mental  states  or  sug- 
gest it,  but  I  dispute  the  supposition  that  they  "prove"  it  in  any 
cogent  way  until  we  know  more  about  the  nature  of  supersensible 
"  phenomena,"  and  consciousness  in  particular,  than  we  do  now. 

If  the  problem  is  solvable  at  all ;  if  there  is  any  rational  procedure 
that  will  determine  the  balance  one  way  or  the  other,  as  against  the 
more  or  less  equal  possibilities  left  in  the  discussions  of  philosophic 
materialism  and  spiritualism,  it  must  come  from  science  or  scientific 
method  in  the  adduction  of  new  facts.  This  method,  whether  it  have 
promise  of  success  or  not,  would  investigate  to  see  if  there  were  any 
evidence  that  consciousness  actually  did  survive  the  dissolution  of  the 
organism  or  not,  instead  of  speculating  about  the  nature  of  it  in  dubious 
terms.  It  would  apply  to  psychological  "phenomena"  the  same 
method  of  isolation  or  difference  which  has  been  so  fruitful  and  suc- 
cessful in  the  physical  sciences  and  which  is  the  ultimate  source  of 


SPIRITUALISM.  47 l 

proof  in  that  field.  If  it  were  once  proved  that  consciousness  actually 
did  survive  death  we  should  know  nothing  more  about  its  nature  than 
we  do  now,  and  we  might  not  even  require  to  discuss  the  question 
whether  it  had  a  subject  at  all.  If  it  actually  survived  the  question 
whether  it  was  a  pure  "phenomenon,"  or  the  function  of  an  imma- 
terial subject  or  some  ^  spiritual  body,"  material  or  immaterial,  simple 
or  complex,  would  be  a  problem  relegated  to  the  same  limbo  as  the 
scholastic  question  about  the  number  of  angels  on  a  needle  point.  The 
trouble  with  the  usual  philosophic  method  is  that  it  does  not  recognize 
its  own  limitations.  Sometimes  it  can  do  nothing  more  than  examine 
the  existing  body  of  real  or  apparent  "  knowledge "  without  adding 
anything  to  it,  and  usually  it  can  only  establish  the  possibility  of  cer- 
tain truths  as  against  the  dogmatic  denial  of  the  contrary.  At  no  time 
has  it  been  able  to  give  any  assurance  on  the  fundamental  problems 
which  excite  the  most  intense  human  interest,  simply  because  it  lacked 
the  definite  facts  to  prove  its  case.  Its  value  I  am  not  questioning, 
but  only  its  claim  to  a  certitude  which  it  does  not  possess.  Its  limita- 
tions in  the  special  problem  before  us  are  determined  by  the  circum- 
stance that  the  "  phenomena,"  whose  nature  is  supposed  to  require  an 
independent  subject,  are  always  associated  with  a  physical  organism  of 
a  transient  character  and  the  limits  of  whose  capacities  for  functional 
action  have  not  been  exactly  determined.  Hence  the  conclusion  which 
it  draws  from  the  distinction  between  mental  and  physical  events  should 
be  held  with  the  reservations  that  are  attached  to  all  uncertain  induc- 
tions, especially  when  there  are  no  positive  facts  on  the  other  side. 
"  Proof"  can  be  obtained  only  by  isolating  mental  "  phenomena  "  from 
this  physical  environment  which  must  always  be  treated  as  a  possible 
cause  of  them  until  thus  eliminated  from  a  determining  influence  on 
the  production  of  consciousness. 

The  strength  of  the  materialistic  position  is  determined  by  two  gen- 
eral considerations.  The  first  is  the  general  evidential  situation,  which 
is  simply  the  fact  that,  not  having  attempted  to  deal  with  the  residual 
"  phenomena  "  that  profess  to  isolate  consciousness,  science  observes 
that  mental  and  physical  events  in  the  individual  have  always  been  as- 
sociated and  never  dissociated  from  the  relation  of  coexistence  and  se- 
quence. The  second  consideration  is  the  explanatory  one  and  consists 
of  the  mass  of  facts  which  show  the  indefinite  possibilities  of  organic 
functions  for  explaining  the  genesis  of  "phenomena"  associated  with 
the  body  and  terminating  with  it.  These  two  considerations  show 
that  materialism  conforms,  at  least  provisionally  and  generally,  to  the 
two  fundamental  conditions  of  a  theory,  namely,  that  it  should  ex- 


472  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

plain  in  terms  of  the  known  and  that  it  should  have  evidence.     I  shall 
take  up  each  of  these  in  its  order. 

Men  have  a  choice  in  the  adoption  of  their  convictions.  They  may 
rely  upon  personal  experience  or  upon  authority ;  that  is,  upon  their 
own  reason  or  upon  the  reason  of  others.  In  the  last  analysis  these 
alternatives  reduce  themselves  to  the  one,  personal  experience,  as  the 
individual  has  himself  to  decide  what  authority  he  shall  accept  and  he 
does  this  on  the  basis  of  some  kind  of  rational  grounds  weak  or  strong. 
The  widest  standard  which  any  one  can  adopt  and  which  will  ultimately 
regulate  cautious  and  reflective  intelligence,  when  not  determined  by 
the  general  rationale  of  things,  is  that  which  reduces  to  the  simple 
question  of  human  experience  and  the  uniform  way  in  which  convic- 
tions of  an  assured  nature  are  accepted  and  established  in  every  day 
life.  This,  briefly  defined,  is  simply  the  method  of  association  and 
dissociation.  Things  that  are  always  associated  and  never  dissociated 
are  treated  as  necessarily  connected.  If  I  find  in  my  experience  that  I 
always  require  a  door  or  a  window  through  which  to  pass  as  an  en- 
trance or  exit  of  my  house  and  that  I  cannot  make  this  entrance  or  exit 
through  the  solid  wall,  I  am  careful  to  see  that  a  usable  house  has  doors 
and  windows.  When  it  comes  to  the  problem  of  immortality  or  the 
existence  of  a  soul  other  than  the  organism  the  question  will  be  de- 
cided by  the  same  principle  that  decides  the  most  common  beliefs. 
Thus  if  I  believe  that  the  clouds  are  a  cause  of  rain  it  is  because  I  have 
always  seen  them  when  it  is  raining  and  I  have  not  seen  rain  when 
they  or  the  proper  condensihle  vapor  are  absent.  If  I  found  it  rain- 
ing at  times  when  there  were  no  condensible  vapors  suspended  in  the 
air,  I  should  not  be  in  haste  to  attribute  the  cause  to  clouds  and  appro- 
priate thermal  conditions.  It  is  the  uniform  association  of  rain  with 
condensible  vapor  that  forms  and  confirms  my  convictions  regarding 
the  cause  of  it.  The  same  general  process  can  be  illustrated  by  the 
relation  between  death  and  organic  growth ;  by  the  relation  between 
carbon  and  oxygen  in  ordinary  combustion,  and  by  hundreds  of  similar 
examples.  They  all  illustrate  the  general  formula  that  when  B  follows 
A  and  does  not  follow  the  absence  of  A,  ceteris  paribus,  A  is  the 
cause  of  B,  and  B  must  disappear  with  the  disappearance  of  A,  pro- 
vided that  it  is  a  function  of  A.  If  B  is  an  organism  brought  into 
existence  by  A  it  may  remain  after  A  has  disappeared,  but  if  it  is  a 
modal  act  or  "  phenomenal"  function  of  A,  an  attribute  of  it  in  its 
sensible  form,  then  B  must  disappear  with  the  disappearance  of  A. 
The  redness  of  an  apple  disappears  with  the  chemical  decomposition 
of  the  organic  whole.     The  luminosity  of  a  light  disappears  with  the 


SPIRITUALISM.  473 

cessation  of  combustion.  In  all  the  affairs  of  life  this  criterion  is  the 
natural  and  necessary  standard  for  rational  belief,  and  our  assurance  in 
every  case  is  proportioned  to  the  degree  of  isolation  that  has  been  ob- 
tained for  the  cause  and  effect. 

Now  if  this  principle  of  conviction  is  applied  to  consciousness  it 
means  simply  that  we  have  always  known  consciousness  in  connection 
with  a  physical  organism  and,  apart  from  the  claims  based  upon  a 
large  mass  of  generally  discredited  "  phenomena,"  we  have  never  known 
consciousness  to  exist  in  isolation  from  the  organism.  Consequently 
there  seems  to  be  no  natural  inference  in  such  a  case  but  that  conscious- 
ness is  a  function  of  the  organism  and  perishable  with  it.  The  fact  is 
so  universal  and  without  exception  that  argument  on  the  other  side 
seems  impossible. 

This  hypothesis,  so  overwhelmingly  supported  by  the  evidential 
situation,  is  variously  confirmed  by  the  manifold  facts  of  physiology 
which  serve  to  supply  the  explanatory  agents  in  the  case.  The  vari- 
ous effects  of  lesion,  of  accident,  of  disease,  and  of  experiment  with 
narcotics  and  anaesthetics  or  vivisection  show  us  that  both  the  existence 
and  integrity  of  our  mental  states  are  so  conditioned  by  physical  causes 
that  we  seem  compelled  to  regard  them  as  functions  of  the  body.  The 
whole  field  of  abnormal  psychology  and  especially  of  insanity,  which 
is  so  generally  accompanied  by  definite  lesions  in  the  nervous  system, 
appears  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  materialism.  The  specific  struc- 
ture of  the  nervous  system  which  will  not  admit  states  of  consciousness 
unless  definitely  correlated  with  physical  stimuli  of  a  specific  kind 
points  in  the  same  direction.  The  supposed  soul  can  have  no  visual 
experiences  without  a  specially  constructed  nerve  for  them.  It  is  the 
same  with  the  tactual,  auditory  and  other  senses.  Still  further  the  fact 
of  sleep  is  a  most  significant  "phenomenon"  suggesting  this  purely 
functional  relation  of  consciousness  to  the  organism.  It  is  presumably 
the  suspension  and  disappearance  of  consciousness,  right  in  the  midst 
of  life,  indicating  the  cessation  of  functions  which  may  be  resumed 
under  the  proper  physical  conditions.  On  no  theory  whatever  in  this 
**  phenomenon"  can  we  suppose  that  consciousness,  as  we  know  it,  is 
uninterrupted  by  sleep.  The  disappearance  of  consciousness  by  sleep, 
but  for  its  recurrence,  is  as  complete  as  it  can  be  supposed  to  be  at 
death.  The  only  apparent  difference  between  them  is  that  the  vital 
functions  continue  in  the  one  and  are  discontinued  in  the  other.  No 
one  questions  the  total  disappearance  of  the  vital  functions  at  death, 
and  as  it  is  not  easy  to  suppose  that  the  soul  leaves  the  body,  like  a 
tenant,  during  sleep  and  returns  afterward,  especially  as  there  are  no 


474  ?'HE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

mnemonic  data  indicating  an  extra-bodily  experience  of  consciousness 
during  the  interval,  the  most  natural  interpretation  of  sleep  is  that  it  is 
merely  suspended  physical  function,  which  simply  becomes  permanent 
in  death.  The  absence  of  a  mnemonic  connection  between  the  bodily 
consciousness  and  what  any  one  might  suppose  to  be  continued  mental 
action  during  sleep  rather  indicates  that  the  evidential  considerations 
are  in  favor  of  sleep  being  nothing  but  suspended  functions  of  the 
brain.  Hence  it  would  not  alter  the  case  to  suppose  that  the  soul 
simply  leaves  the  body  during  sleep  to  return  at  its  pleasure  or  when 
the  bodily  functions  will  permit,  because  there  is  no  consciousness  of 
such  a  removal  and  no  known  continuance  of  personal  consciousness 
during  any  assumed  extra-bodily  existence,  as  should  be  the  case  if 
sleep  were  not  a  suspended  function.  Consequently,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence in  normal  experience  of  continued  existence  independent  of  the 
body  in  either  sleep  or  death,  that  is,  of  the  fact  which  would  be  the 
only  possible  phenomenon  suggesting  a  non-material  subject  or  con- 
tinued existence  in  spite  of  the  suspended  vital  functions.  Rather 
the  absence  of  any  consciousness  of  this  continued  existence  as  sup- 
posed possible  is  evidence  against  the  assumption.  This  consciousness 
is  as  much  suspended  by  sleep  when  the  soul  is  supposed  to  leave  the 
body,  on  this  theory,  as  when  it  is  supposed  to  be  connected  with  the 
organism,  and  consequently  personal  identity,  in  the  characteristic  that 
interests  us  most  and  makes  existence  important,  is  as  much  lost  by  this 
assumed  emigration  as  by  the  mere  cessation  of  function,  so  that  the 
survival  of  the  soul  on  the  supposition  that  it  simply  departs  from  the 
body  during  sleep  has  no  value  for  us  whatever  and  might  suggest 
that  the  same  result  occurs  at  death,  personal  identity  in  its  only  im- 
portant feature  being  lost  and  the  mere  substance  surviving  as  with 
the  indestructibility  of  matter.  We  should  only  be  holding  fast  to  the 
shell  while  we  abandoned  the  kernel  in  thus  maintaining  the  persistence 
of  the  soul  without  any  conscious  link  with  the  past.  The  real  question 
that  interests  us  is  whether  consciousness  as  we  know  it  in  our  personal 
identity  survives  death.  If  it  is  temporarily  suspended  by  sleep  and 
accident  or  disintegrated  by  disease,  the  probability  would  seem  to  be 
that  it  was  permanently  suspended  by  death. 

The  whole  history  of  organic  life  and  of  the  "phenomena"  of 
chemistry  and  physiology  furnishes  illustration  of  what  composition 
can  explain  in  the  cause  and  suspension  of  functions.  It  is  not,  as  it 
was  with  the  Greeks,  a  question  whether  all  matter  was  animated,  but 
the  question  whether  we  require  to  suppose  more  than  the  actions  and 
reactions  of  elements  in  composition  to  explain  the  difference  between 


SPIRITUALISM.  475 

inorganic  and  organic  bodies.  Chemistry  shows  us  that  we  do  not 
require  to  suppose  that  specific  functions  can  or  must  characterize 
matter  in  all  its  conditions  in  order  to  explain  the  appearance  and  dis- 
appearance of  certain  properties,  and  hence  that  "phenomena"  may 
occur  which  cannot  be  traced  to  a  material  cause  in  the  antecedent  in 
any  sense  that  it  is  identical  in  kind  with  the  effect  as  produced,  and 
that  there  are  limitations  to  the  capacities  of  matter  to  produce  effects, 
showing  that  variant  functions  may  arise  with  variation  of  composi- 
tion. All  these  facts  apparently  show  that  matter  has  capacities  in 
composition  to  sufficiently  account  for  the  nature  and  occurrence  of 
consciousness  without  supposing  a  special  subject,  atom,  or  system  of 
atoms  other  than  the  organism.  No  facts  but  the  residual  "  phenom- 
ena "  of  a  debatable  province  clearly  contradict  either  the  evidential  or 
the  explanatory  maxims  which  I  have  laid  down  as  conditioning  ra- 
tional conviction  on  the  subject. 

Now  the  question  is  whether  spiritualism  can  present  any  satisfac- 
tory counter  claims  to  evidence  that  seems  so  overwhelming  against  it. 
As  presented  above,  materialism  has  appeared  to  have  no  competitor. 
But  in  spite  of  this  I  think  it  must  be  confessed  by  all  candid  persons 
that  there  are  some  things  to  be  said  on  the  other  side,  even  though 
they  may  not  have  much  force,  things  too  that  cannot  be  attributed  to 
the  obstinacy  of  personal  interest,  as  this  is  so  constantly  charged  to 
spiritualism.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  trouble  with  spiritualism  has 
too  often  been  that  it  was  open  to  the  charge  of  constructing  its  theory 
out  of  deference  to  a  personal  interest  in  immortality  and  of  evading 
the  cogency  of  facts  in  contravention  of  this  doctrine,  while  it  was 
assumed  that  materialism  had  no  such  personal  interest  in  support  of 
its  claims.  The  materialist  could  always  play  the  role  of  a  stoic  in  the 
face  of  nature  when  he  had  a  moral  character  and  felt  the  impulses  of 
an  idealism  that  wanted  to  look  beyond  it,  but  had  not  the  facts  to 
assure  itself.  This  courage  in  connection  with  a  fine  morality  is  always 
attractive  and  the  spiritualist  wants  the  virtue  while  he  maintains  a 
philosophy  which  makes  it  superfluous.  But  if  the  materialist  is  a 
hero  and  the  spiritualist  is  a  coward  it  is  easy  to  predict  which  way 
admiration  and  proselytism  will  go.  Hence  in  the  situation  which 
accrues  to  the  virtue  of  a  courageous  submission  to  facts,  the  spiritu- 
alist has  always  been  exposed  to  the  suspicion  of  timidity  and  personal 
interest  in  the  advocacy  of  his  theory,  a  disposition  which  science  re- 
quires to  have  eliminated  before  the  truth  can  be  seen  and  rightly  ap- 
preciated. Science  is  supposed  to  be  impersonal,  to  depend  upon 
those  qualities  of  mind  and  will  which  the  Christian  has  exalted  in  the 


4/6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

virtues  of  patience,  faith  and  submission  to  an  order  not  his  own. 
This  disposition  appears  to  contradict  the  intense  personal  interest 
which  is  in  such  danger  of  governing  the  belief  in  spiritual  realities, 
especially  when  it  is  exercised  in  behalf  of  one's  own  survival  after 
death.  Consequently  until  the  spiritualist  can  cooly  face  the  scientific 
objections  to  his  theory,  frankly  admit  the  strength  of  the  materialistic 
doctrine,  and  show  himself  ready  to  sacrifice  the  personal  and  moral 
considerations  that  so  often  move  to  controversy  with  the  materialist, 
he  is  not  likely  to  obtain  respect  for  his  position.  Moreover,  the  ma- 
terialist should  not  forget  that  personal  interests  have  often  as  much 
dominated  his  speculations  as  those  of  his  antagonist,  though  they 
were  not  of  the  same  kind.  The  force  of  his  imputation  lay  in  the 
assumption  that  the  love  of  life  and  its  continuance  beyond  death  is  not 
only  the  strongest  of  instincts,  but  is  such  as  to  rob  the  individual  of 
courage  in  facing  the  facts  of  experience,  while  he  posed  as  a  stoic  and 
hero.  But  it  is  possible  to  be  as  devoted  to  an  incarnate  life  as  the 
religious  man  is  enamored  of  the  future.  If  a  belief  in  a  discarnate 
existence  should  put  limitations  to  the  instincts  of  libertinism  or  serve 
to  suggest  a  check  to  temptations  which  a  fine  conscience  must  scorn, 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  predominance  of  what  the  Christian  calls 
"carnal  desires"  might  constitute  a  personal  interest  worse  than  the 
spiritualist's  desire  to  continue  consciousness  beyond  the  grave  in  a 
sublimated  and  ethereal  happiness.  Hence  it  is  not  well  to  indulge  in 
criminations  when  creating  the  temper  which  has  to  judge  facts.  It 
is  possible  for  materialism  to  be  as  much  handicapped  by  prejudice  as 
spiritualism.  The  two  theories  have  been  closely  identified  with  dif- 
ferent moral  ideals  and  this  fact  may  prejudice  one  as  much  as  the 
other.  The  bad  reputation  which  Epicureanism  has  possessed  in  the 
estimation  of  many  good  people  was  due  to  the  later  development  of 
that  school  into  the  debaucheries  which  were  associated,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  with  the  denial  of  immortality,  and  showed  that  "this- 
worldliness  "  might  be  even  as  bad  as  "  other- worldliness."  The  sci- 
entific position  must  be  an  impersonal  one  in  relation  to  both  sides, 
though  I  think  it  true  that  spiritualism  must  have  a  harder  time  elim- 
inating the  possibility  of  prejudicial  criminations  against  itself  than  the 
materialistic  theory,  because  the  love  of  existence,  separated  from  cer- 
tain specific  theological  theories,  is  so  strong  and  diverting  in  its  moral 
effects  on  true  conduct,  that  it  would  seem  to  be  an  evidence  of  sound 
judgment  that  it  had  been  eradicated  in  the  acceptance  of  materialism 
and  a  source  of  error  eliminated. 

But  in  spite  of  all  real  or  apparent  difficulties  suggested  by  the 


SPIRITUALISM.  477 

possibility  of  illegitimate  motives  in  the  formation  of  belief  on  this 
matter  we  cannot  discredit  facts  by  ridiculing  the  believer  for  cowardice 
nor  afford  to  display  any  more  bigotry  and  dogmatism  on  the  negative 
side  of  the  question  than  on  the  affirmative,  and  there  are  facts  which 
can  be  urged  in  favor  of  the  spiritualistic  theory  that  consciousness 
has  a  subject  other  than  the  brain.  I  shall  not  say  that  these  facts 
prove  the  survival  of  this  personal  consciousness  as  much  as  they  favor 
the  supposition  of  an  energy  other  than  the  organism.  Spiritualism 
has  a  double  problem  to  solve.  First,  it  has  to  explain  the  present 
"  phenomena"  of  consciousness  and  it  might  require  a  "  soul"  to  do 
this,  whether  it  be  regarded  as  simple  or  complex.  Secondly,  if  it  is 
practically  or  morally  different  from  materialism,  it  has  to  show  that 
consciousness  as  well  as  the  soul  survives  death.  It  may  be  that  it 
can  effect  nothing  more  than  to  produce  inductive  evidence  that  the 
brain  or  organism  is  not  the  subject  of  consciousness.  But  whether 
it  can  effect  more  or  not,  it  is  certain  that,  apart  from  evidence  of  the 
actual  survival  of  consciousness,  the  only  possible  course  open  to 
philosophy  is  to  ascertain  whether  there  are  any  facts  which  suggest 
as  rational  the  belief  that  consciousness  is  not  a  function  of  the  organ- 
ism, but  an  activity  of  some  other  subject.  The  following  considera- 
tions certainly  have  their  weight  in  this  direction,  although  they  are 
merely  negative  and  depend  upon  certain  apparent  weaknesses  of  the 
materialistic  theory. 

i .  The  first  fact  is  the  consistency  of  a  spiritualistic  theory  with  all 
the  facts  of  normal  and  abnormal  psychology  the  latter  of  which  are 
supposed  to  dispute  it.  The  existence  of  a  soul  is  not  incompatible 
with  disturbances  in  its  own  normal  functions  by  its  relation  to  irregu- 
lar conditions  in  its  material  organism  and  environment.  In  any  sort 
of  relation  between  two  different  realities,  whether  of  the  same  or  dif- 
ferent kinds,  it  would  be  quite  natural  that  the  functional  action  of  the 
one  should  be  affected  by  that  of  the  other.  This  is  a  universal  fact 
in  material  compounds,  or  even  in  mechanical  mixtures,  and  hence  it 
is  not  a  conclusive  argument  against  the  existence  of  a  given  reality 
that  it  does  not  act  in  a  normal  way,  if  the  conditions  are  disturbed 
under  which  it  usually  acts  in  a  particular  way.  Forcible  as  the  argu- 
ment from  abnormal  psychology  is  in  favor  of  materialism,  suggesting 
an  organic  relation  between  consciousness  and  the  brain,  it  is  not  con- 
clusive for  the  simple  reason  that  the  phenomena  would  be  nearly  or 
exactly  the  same,  if  a  soul  existed  in  the  organism,  as  any  theory  of 
causation  whatever  would  involve  reciprocal  disturbances  in  either 
subject  when  the  other  was  out  of  harmony.     The  only  fact  that  pre- 


478  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sents  definite  logical  cogency  at  this  point  against  spiritualism  is  the 
"phenomenon"  of  sleep.  Sleep  bears  against  the  survival  of  per- 
sonal consciousness,  if  it  has  any  force  at  all,  and  against  the  existence 
of  a  subject  other  than  the  brain  to  account  for  present  consciousness. 
If  a  subject  other  than  the  brain  be  admitted  at  all,  there  is  no  more 
difficulty  in  supposing  the  suspension  of  consciousness  and  its  revival 
after  death  than  there  is  of  its  suspension  and  revival  in  the  organism. 
Sleep  is  not  an  objection  to  spiritualism,  if  once  a  subject  other  than 
the  brain  is  conceded.  It  can  only  create  a  suspicion  that  consciousness 
is  a  function  of  the  brain  and  not  of  an  extrabodily  substance  or 
subject. 

2.  The  materialist,  except  when  he  presses  to  the  last  extremity  the 
principle  of  material  or  "  mechanical"  causation,  the  conservation  of 
energy  qualitatively  considered,  does  not  assume  or  concede  the  pres- 
ence of  consciousness  in  all  matter  or  material  combinations.  It  is 
presumably  absent  from  the  atomic  elements  and  all  inorganic  com- 
pounds. That  is,  consciousness  is  not  a  universal  function  of  matter. 
It  is  possible  to  give  this  concession  a  turn  in  favor  of  spiritualism  in- 
dependently of  the  question  whether  the  residuum  of  organic  "  phenom- 
ena" might  not  be  accounted  for  on  the  principle  of  efficient  causes,  or 
internal  "forces."  The  materialist  assumes  and  concedes  the  law  of 
inertia,  and  he  concedes  this  beyond  the  mere  inability  to  produce  or 
desist  from  motion  and  to  the  extent  that  matter  cannot  originate  its 
own  action.  External  as  distinct  from  internal  efficient  causation 
is  the  principle  of  initiation  in  the  materialistic  theory,  when  it  is 
forced  to  abandon  material  causation  as  an  explanation  of  even 
subjective  reactions.  In  this  position  it  is  confronted  by  the  ap- 
parently radical  distinction  between  inorganic  and  organic  actions. 
It  accepts  the  doctrine  that  there  is  no  self-motion  in  the  inor- 
ganic world  and  no  action  in  it  without  foreign  incitement.  In  the 
organic  world  the  difference  is  apparently  radical.  Organic  beings 
are  apparently  capable  of  self-activity  wholly  in  opposition  to  the 
fundamental  assumption  of  inertia  supposed  to  characterize  the  na- 
ture of  matter,  as  most  convincingly  exhibited  in  conscious  and  self- 
conscious  beings.  This  capacity  is  usually  called  freedom  or  free  will, 
denoting  either  spontaneity,  mere  self-origination,  or  velleity  when  it 
denotes  alternative  choice.  Of  course,  the  reply  is  that  freedom  is  an 
illusion  and  that  what  we  mistake  for  free  volition  is  only  a  more  com- 
plicated "mechanical"  action.  But  there  are  several  facts  which 
prevent  the  materialist  from  confident  dogmatism  at  this  point.  The 
first  and  most  apparent  is  the  fact  that  the  spontaneous  actions  of  or- 


SPIRITUALISM.  479 

ganic  beings  bear  no  external  resemblance  to  the  "  mechanical  "  actions 
of  inorganic  matter  where  the  transmission  of  energy  is  the  type  of 
activity,  except  in  chemical  "phenomena."  There  is  no  definite 
coordination  or  teleological  adjustment' in  purely  "mechanical" 
actions,  while  the  actions  of  organic  beings  show  that  adaptation  which 
defies  proof  of  anything  like  the  simple  transmission  of  energy.  There 
is  no  fixed  relation  between  the  external  stimuli  and  the  intelligent  co- 
ordinations and  adjustments  of  living  beings.  The  only  safety  of  the 
determinist  here  is  to  say  that  we  do  not  know  how  complex  the 
"mechanical"  activities  of  the  organism  maybe.  But  ignorance  is 
no  incident  in  favor  of  determinism,  while  the  positive  evidence,  on 
any  conception  of  nature,  even  the  materialistic,  is  overwhelmingly  in 
favor  of  freedom,  as  the  purely  "  mechanical "  doctrine  of  energy  is  not 
the  universal  one.  The  very  strength  of  the  materialist's  theory  lies  in 
getting  internal  "  forces  "  to  account  for  "phenomena"  which  he  is 
compelled  to  concede  are  not  accounted  for  by  the  external,  whether 
efficient  or  material,  and  he  must  be  at  a  loss  to  limit  and  define  these 
internal  "  forces"  so  as  not  to  include  the  free  initiation  of  conscious 
actions.  It  was  precisely  the  qualitative  difference  between  "cause 
and  effect "  that  his  theory  of  efficient  causation,  if  worked  out  which 
it  was  not,  was  calculated  to  explain,  so  that  he  cannot  return  to  the 
"  mechanical  "  conception  to  escape  freedom.  These  internal  "  forces  " 
may  include  self-activity,  so  that  he  must  either  abandon  them  as  an 
explanation  of  consciousness  or  accept  the  possibility  of  self -activity  as 
either  denying  or  limiting  the  doctrine  of  inertia.  Just  so  long  as  ma- 
terialism leaves  inertia  unqualified  and  cannot  explain  everything  by 
material  causation,  so  long  will  it  be  confronted  by  the  facts  of 
qualitative  change  not  transmitted  from  without  as  overwhelmingly 
against  "  mechanical"  determination,  while  the  denial  of  self -activity 
is  consistent  with  nothing  else.  The  materialist  cannot  insist  at  the 
same  time  upon  the  identity  and  the  difference  between  mental  and 
physical  "phenomena"  without  defining  the  relation  between  them 
more  consistently  than  the  doctrine  of  inertia  and  internal  "forces" 
will  permit  in  the  attempt  to  reduce  real  or  apparent  self-activity  to 
"mechanical"  action  which  is  not  conceived  as  self-initiative. 

I  am  not  here  reproducing  the  difference  between  physical  and 
mental  events  exhibited  in  the  distinction  between  inorganic  and  organic 
nature,  as  an  evidence  of  spiritualism,  but  as  a  means  of  showing  the 
relation  of  this  difference  to  the  doctrine  of  inertia.  That  is,  I  am  not 
using  their  difference  as  events  or  effects,  but  their  difference  in  rela- 
tion to  inertia  which  is  the  absence  of  initial  causation  supposed  to 


4S0  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

characterize  the  nature  of  all  matter.  Incapacity  for  self-action  is 
what  inertia  and  "  mechanical "  causation  mean,  so  that  the  materialist 
has  to  identify  the  actions  of  organic  beings  with  those  of  the  inorganic 
in  order  to  maintain  the  universality  of  his  principle.  If  the  doctrine 
of  inertia  were  revised  or  conceived  so  as  to  be  consistent  with  self- 
activity,  the  argument  just  presented  would  lose  its  force.  But  it  is 
precisely  because  materialism  assumes  the  doctrine  of  inertia  and  the 
uncreated  and  indestructible  nature  of  motion,  that  its  argument  for 
"  mechanical"  determinism  has  its  cogency,  and  the  reduction  of  voli- 
tion to  this  type  of  action  would  not  permit  of  any  real  difference 
between  the  mental  and  physical  in  this  respect.  This  conclusion  of 
the  materialist,  however,  is  not  consistent  with  the  important  distinc- 
tion between  the  actions  of  the  inorganic  and  those  of  organic  com- 
pounds of  the  animal  type,  the  latter  of  which  are  indubitably  capable 
of  self-activity  in  a  manner  not  definable  or  conceivable  in  terms  of 
impact  and  transmission.  The  difference  between  conscious  volition 
and  "  mechanical"  action  is  so  great  that  their  identity  can  be  assumed 
only  by  charging  illusion  against  both  immediate  consciousness  and 
reasoning,  a  policy  which  can  only  discredit  the  judgment  that  adopts 
it,  as  this  premise  must  imply  that  consciousness  can  no  more  be  trusted 
to  declare  for  their  identity  than  it  can  be  accepted  in  its  deliverance 
for  freedom.  If  freedom  is  an  illusion,  so  must  be  all  convictions  as 
to  determinism,  especially  when  we  recall  the  general  principle  of 
knowledge  enunciated  in  this  work,  that  ratiocinative  processes  are 
exposed  to  such  a  host  of  fallacies  that  the  confidence  of  the  determinist 
in  his  logical  method  is  as  amusing  as  it  is  captious.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  when  we  remark  that  determinism  never  boasts  of  direct  evi- 
dence in  its  favor,  but  only  of  ratiocinative  argument  without  any 
accompanying  sense  of  humor  in  regard  to  its  liabilities.  To  discredit 
the  final  court  of  appeal  in  such  matters  is  to  invoke  a  more  thorough 
scepticism  than  is  bargained  for  in  the  controversy,  namely,  that  of  the 
conditions  which  supply  the  pi-emises  of  all  proof  and  the  process  of 
reasoning  itself.  Besides  the  materialist  cannot  admit  the  difference 
between  the  mental  and  physical  without  exposing  the  argument  of 
determinism  to  annihilation,  and  to  appeal  to  internal  efficient  causa- 
tion to  explain  that  difference  is  to  open  the  way  to  the  acceptance  of 
the  testimony  of  consciousness  to  the  fact  of  free  action.  Now  the 
progress  of  complexity  in  the  functions  of  both  inorganic  and  organic 
compounds  is  accompanied  usually  by  a  corresponding  complexity  of 
constitutive  elements,  so  that  the  substantive  basis  for  new  functions 
generally  involves  something  adequate  to  the   "phenomena"  to  be 


SPIRITUALISM.  4Sl 

explained.  When  we  reach  the  organic  world  of  spontaneous  and  free 
actions  we  have  facts  at  least  apparently  at  variance  with  inertia  to  the 
extent  that  the  conception  of  ' '  mechanical "  causation  will  have  either 
to  submit  to  limitations  or  be  universalized  at  the  expense  of  its  antith- 
esis to  freedom.  As  long,  however,  as  materialism  antagonizes  free- 
dom and  tries  to  evade  the  manifest  difference  between  simple 
"  mechanical"  actions  and  the  conscious  volitions  of  organic  beings  it 
is  exposed  to  the  argument  based  upon  the  widespread  and  radical  dis- 
tinction mentioned,  and  it  will  be  natural  to  believe  in  a  soul  to  account 
for  volition.  If  he  can  appropriate  a  doctrine  of  efficient  cause  and 
the  idea  of  internal  ' '  forces  "  to  suggest  the  possibility  of  free  volitions 
as  functions  of  organism,  he  may  still  redeem  his  position  from  defeat, 
but  he  will  not  relieve  his  theory  from  objections  short  of  that  policy. 
He  must  choose  between  the  limitation  of  inertia  with  the  admission  of 
freedom  and  the  maintenance  of  formulas  whose  cogency  lies  in  their 
verbal  associations  and  not  in  the  fact  which  they  are  intended  to 
cover. 

3.  I  have  alluded  to  the  localization  of  brain  functions  as  a  fact  in 
favor  of  the  materialistic  theory.  But  there  has  recently  arisen  a  view 
of  this  localization  which  creates  a  difficulty  for  materialism  right 
where  it  was  supposed  to  be  strongest.  The  old  theory  of  brain  func- 
tions, in  the  form  which  localized  specific  activities,  sensory  and  motor, 
at  definite  points  in  the  brain  conceived  these  functions  as  organic 
actions  of  these  particular  centers,  vision  in  the  occipital  lobe,  audition 
in  the  temporal  lobe,  and  motor  functions  about  the  fissure  of  Rolando, 
etc.  The  old  phrenological  theory  was  abandoned  in  its  psychological 
analysis  and  specific  physiological  centers,  but  its  general  conception 
of  specific  localities  for  specific  functions  was  retained.  But  after  this 
new  theory  had  prevailed  for  a  short  period  the  histological  discoveries 
involving  a  new  conception  of  neural  structure  and  centers,  and  the 
improvement  of  experiments  in  vivisection  and  the  removal  of  various 
portions  of  the  spinal  cord  and  the  cerebrum,  with  the  retention  intact 
or  the  recovery  of  formerly  exercised  functions,  resulted  in  that  con- 
ception of  vicarious  functions  which  proves  that  localized  actions  were 
"empirical"  and  not  organic,  that  is,  the  result  of  habit,  not  of  true 
functional  genesis  in  that  specific  center.  Recent  experiments  in  the 
excision  of  important  centers  involving  the  restoration  of  normal  func- 
tions in  spite  of  the  excision,  experiments  that  have  been  numerous  and 
widely  extended  over  the  nervous  system,  have  led  to  the  view  that  the 
various  centers  of  the  brain  are  merely  channels  through  which  energy 
is  transmitted,  not  organs  for  their  genesis.     This  conception  suggests 


4S2  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  view  that  the  brain  is  a  medium  for  the  transmission  of  energy  to 
the  motor  system  and  not  the  organ  proper  for  mental  functions  whether 
intellectual  or  volitional.  It  of  course  still  remains  possible  for 
materialism  to  claim  that  the  brain  functions  as  a  whole  in  sensory 
and  motor  activities,  and  that,  though  the  individual  centers  do  not 
originate  them,  they  may  be  the  channels  for  the  distribution  of  energy. 
This  position  has  to  be  granted  its  evidential  security  until  it  can  be 
shown  with  equal  clearness  that  consciousness  can  exist  wholly  apart 
from  a  nervous  system.  But  the  discovery  that  the  various  centers  are 
mere  media  is  a  suggestion  that  the  whole  brain  may  be  the  same, 
though  there  is  no  finally  conclusive  evidence  to  prove  it. 

4.  The  next  consideration  negatively  in  favor  of  spiritualism  is  the 
impossibility  of  scientifically  " proving  "  materialism.  Scientific  proof 
of  the  absolutely  assured  sort  is  the  verification  of  an  hypothesis  by 
ihe  Method  of  Difference,  or  the  isolation  of  the  "  phenomenon"  and 
its  cause.  In  the  case  of  materialism  which  denies  the  survival  of 
consciousness  this  method  would  involve  the  evidence  that  conscious- 
ness has  actually  disappeared  with  the  dissolution  of  the  organism.  I 
need  hardly  allude  to  the  impossibility  of  proving  the  negative  in  such 
si  case,  as  that  ought  to  be  apparent  to  the  merest  tyro  in  philosophic 
'  thought,  but  the  fact  may  require  to  be  asserted  as  a  challenge  of  that 
dogmatism  which  so  confidently  parades  denial  and  contempt  for  the 
opposite  possibility  without  accepting  responsibility  for  the  evi- 
dence demanded.  In  view  of  such  dogmatism  also  it  may  be  useful 
to  examine  some  elementary  problems  in  science. 

If  materialism  of  that  sort  which  maintains  that  consciousness  is  a 
function  of  a  composite  organism  be  true,  the  extinction  of  conscious- 
ness by  death  must  be  a  fact  and  it  remains  for  its  advocates  to  prove 
the  fact,  to  verify  the  logical  consequences  of  their  theory,  if  they  in- 
tend to  insist  that  belief  in  its  survival  shall  be  evidently  supported. 
We  cannot  say  that  the  coincidence  of  consciousness  with  organism  is 
absolute  "proof"  that  it  is  only  a  function  of  that  organism,  as  the 
method  of  difference  must  always  be  the  final  court  of  appeal  when 
scepticism  is  presented  against  less  cogent  evidence.  I  agree  that  the 
Method  of  Agreement  is  for  the  theory  of  materialism,  and  that  if  the 
method  of  difference  or  isolation  cannot  be  applied  to  prove  spirit- 
ualism, that  the  positive  argument  must  remain  for  materialism.  This 
means  that  all  the  evidence  that  we  actually  have,  apart  from  resid- 
ual "  phenomena  "  which  science  hesitates  to  accept  as  important  in  the 
problem,  represents  consciousness  and  its  integrity  as  definitely  asso- 
ciated with  the  physical  organism  and  as  never  dissociated  from  it. 


SPIRITUALISM.  483 

This  is  to  say  that  the  method  of  agreement  represents  the  known 
conditions  and  relations  of  consciousness  while  the  method  of  differ- 
ence, for  either  proof  or  disproof,  has  not  been  satisfied.  Expressed 
in  untechnical  language  this  means  only  that  the  evidence,  such  as  it  is, 
and  that  is  strong,  is  of  an  inductive  character  and  favors  materialism, 
which,  even  if  actually  false,  is  the  only  rational  one  to  hold  on  the 
basis  of  the  scientific  evidence  at  command.  Introspective  and  analyt- 
ical results  may  suggest  and  support  scepticism  of  dogmatic  assurance 
on  this  evidence,  but  they  do  not  supplant  or  displace  the  force  of  the 
evidential  criterion  employed  by  science  in  the  determination  of  con- 
viction on  all  such  questions.  In  the  last  analysis  the  fundamental 
standards  of  science  have  to  be  satisfied  or  the  case  abandoned.  These 
standards  involve  the  limitation  of  our  knowledge  at  present,  so  far  as 
accepted  evidence  goes,  to  the  association  of  consciousness  with  the 
organism  and  total  ignorance  of  its  existence  as  dissociated  with  it,  so 
that  materialism  has  the  balance  of  possibility  or  probability  in  its 
favor  until  something  cogent  on  the  other  side  can  be  produced. 

But  if  materialism  is  to  be  anything  more  than  a  working  hypoth- 
esis, imposing  the  burden  of  proof  upon  spiritualism,  it  should  be 
able  to  verify  its  contention  by  the  method  of  isolation.  It  can  multi- 
ply facts  on  the  side  of  agreement  as  much  as  it  pleases,  but  it  only 
leaves  the  effectual  proof  of  the  hypothesis  untouched.  It  should 
"  prove"  that  consciousness  is  annihilated  with  the  dissolution  of  the 
body  and  not  merely  that  within  our  knowledge  it  is  always  associated 
with  it.  This  association  is  freely  admitted  by  the  spiritualist  and  his 
demand  is  that  its  disappearance  be  proved  as  well  as  its  known  con- 
nections and  modifications  under  physical  causes.  If  the  materialist 
cannot  "  prove"  that  consciousness  disappears  with  the  body  his 
theory  is  only  a  working  hypothesis  and  nothing  more.  I  do  not  deny 
the  correctness  of  it  on  the  evidence  we  have.  It  may  be  the  only 
rational  position  possible  without  traces  of  a  dissociated  consciousness. 
But  until  definite  proof  of  this  disappearance  is  presented  the  attitude 
of  the  materialist  must  be  that  of  an  agnostic,  and  not  of  the  dogmatist. 
This,  of  course,  was  the  conclusion  of  Kant  established  in  his  own  way 
and  without  formulating  his  doctrine  in  terms  of  scientific  method. 

A  most  important  consideration  in  estimating  the  difficulties  and 
limitations  of  materialism  is  the  very  significant  fact  that  we  have  no 
direct  or  immediate  evidence  of  any  consciousness  in  the  universe  ex- 
cept our  own.  All  that  we  directly  know  is  certain  physical  "phe- 
nomena," organic  or  inorganic,  and  the  existence  of  consciousness 
connected  with  objective  realities  is  an  inference  from  physical  facts 


4S4  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

which,  in  ourselves,  we  know  directly  are  associated  with  conscious- 
ness. External  consciousness  is  absolutely  concealed  from  us  except 
as  we  can  infer  it  from  its  physical  effects.  This  is  only  to  say  that 
the  subject  can  discover  consciousness  in  the  object  only  by  the  teleo- 
logical  argument  after  abandoning  the  ontological,  and  we  have  seen 
that  the  materialist  cannot  abide  by  the  ontological  interpretation  of  the 
relation  between  the  mental  and  physical  without  proving  too  much. 
He  would  prove  the  persistence  of  consciousness  and  convert  his  theory 
into  spiritualism.  As  long  as  there  is  no  transmission  of  influence 
from  object  to  subject  the  character  of  the  causal  agencies  in  the  object, 
if  allied  to  consciousness  at  all,  must  be  indirectly  determined  by  a  tel- 
eological  argument,  by  the  interpretation  of  physical  movements  as 
initiated  or  not  initiated  by  intelligence.  This  means  that  our  evi- 
dence for  the  existence  of  consciousness  in  others  is  limited  to  physical 
1  lovements  of  a  certain  definitely  coordinated  kind,  in  the  last  analysis 
analogous  to  our  own.  But  it  is  important  to  remark  that,  if  these 
movements  are  absent,  this  absence  is  not  proof  of  the  discontinuance 
of  an  objective  person's  consciousness.  All  that  is  proved  by  this 
defect  of  evidence  is  that  consciousness  has  ceased  to  produce  effects 
in  the  organism  and  the  physical  world,  not  that  the  consciousness  has 
ceased  to  exist.  This  is  finely  illustrated  and  proved  by  those  cases  of 
paralysis  which  recover  sufficiently  to  attest  the  continuance  of  con- 
sciousness during  the  entire  absence  of  the  physical  evidence  for  its 
existence.  As  consciousness  in  others  thus  depends  absolutely  upon 
the  possibility  of  producing  a  physical  effect  in  or  through  the  organism 
with  which  it  is  associated  as  evidence  of  its  existence,  the  interruption 
of  that  effect  by  death  or  sleep  is  no  proof  of  its  decease  or  discon- 
tinuance. It  may  still  subsist  and  yet  be  unable  to  give  any  objective 
evidence  of  this  fact.  Consequently  the  materialist  is  absolutely  cut 
off  from  the  "  proof"  of  his  theory  by  the  apparent  disappearance  of 
objective  consciousness.  All  that  he  can  claim  is  that  the  evidence  of 
its  continuance  is  wanting.  But  he  cannot  positively  deny  its  persist- 
ence in  the  case  of  others  than  himself.  He  can  only  suspend  his 
judgment  and  say  that  he  does  not  know. 

But  if  the  disappearance  of  consciousness  in  others  cannot  be  proved, 
how  does  it  fare  with  the  subject's  own  consciousness  ?  It  will  be  clear 
that  he  is  equally  helpless  here.  For  no  man  can  attest  even  to  him- 
self the  decease  or  discontinuance  of  his  own  consciousness.  To  be 
aware  of  his  own  annihilation  is  a  contradiction.  All  that  a  man  can 
be  aware  of  is  either  the  facts  of  consciousness  that  attest  his  own  ex- 
istence or  those  that  attest  the  existence  of  external  objects  physical  or 


SPIRITUALISM. 


4S5 


mental.  He  cannot  directly  or  indirectly  prove  his  own  annihilation. 
We  are  never  even  directly  aware  of  the  suspense  of  consciousness  by 
sleep  or  accident  in  our  bodily  life.  We  can  only  infer  from  circum- 
stances that  some  unusual  change  has  occurred  and  the  testimony  of 
others  may  enable  us  to  form  a  conception  of  sleep  and  syncope,  and 
what  we  observe  objectively  in  their  experience  may  afford  a  further 
clue  to  what  is  meant  by  the  lapse  of  consciousness  in  ourselves,  which 
may  actually  occur  without  any  sense  of  temporal  loss.  It  must  be 
the  same  in  the  case  of  death,  if  we  are  actually  annihilated.  There 
could  thus  be  no  evidence  to  either  ourselves  or  others  of  our  existence 
in  this  case ;  not  to  ourselves  because  we  should  be  extinct,  and  not  to 
others  because  we  could  not  produce  the  necessary  evidence.  It  will 
thus  appear  that  the  only  theory  which  can  have  any  hope  or  possibility 
of  proof  is  the  spiritualistic,  as  actual  survival  would  supply  the  sub- 
jective attestation  and  circumstances  might  arise  in  which  it  could 
objectively  attest  personal  identity.  But  the  materialist  cannot  pro- 
duce either  subjective  or  objective  evidence  of  annihilation.  He  is 
hopelessly  excluded  from  the  proof  of  his  theory. 

The  proof  that  consciousness  had  a  subject  other  than  the  brain  or 
organism  would  clearly  establish  the  possibility  of  a  surviving  con- 
sciousness beyond  a  doubt,  but  it  would  not  differ  practically  from  ma- 
terialism unless  it  did  carry  this  implication  with  it.  This  possi- 
bility, as  we  have  seen,  is  involved  in  the  admissions  of  ancient  mate- 
rialism regarding  what  may  be  called  a  "  spiritual  body."  But  this 
granted,  it  would  still  remain  to  be  proved  that  the  consciousness 
which  we  know  in  our  bodily  existence  had  any  continuity  or  revival 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  organism,  and  without  this  revival  there 
would  be  no  practical  interest  in  either  adopting  or  refuting  material- 
ism, while  there  would  be  no  final  disproof  of  it  until  the  survival  of  per- 
sonal and  individual  consciousness  had  been  proved  or  rendered  proba- 
ble. All  that  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  soul  or  subject  other  than 
the  brain  would  establish  would  be  the  condition  on  which  tYie  possi- 
bility of  a  surviving  consciousness  might  rest,  not  the  fact  of  it.  The 
suspense  of  consciousness,  as  in  sleep,  might  be  perpetual,  or  the  altera- 
tion of  personality,  as  in  accident,  disease  or  secondary  consciousness, 
might  supplant  the  normal  "self"  and  all  but  the  substantive  or  sub- 
ject identity  lost.  In  this  way  the  soul  might  change  its  functional 
activity  so  much,  if  it  ever  resumed  any  at  all,  that  nothing  would  be 
gained  for  our  personal  consciousness  and  its  ideals.  The  Platonic 
doctrine  might  be  realized.  The  consciousness  which  actually  inter- 
ests us  might  still  be  the  resultant  of  the  composition  of  the  soul  with 


486  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  organism,  while  the  soul  might  function  in  some  other  manner  after 
the  separation  without  any  mnemonic  connection  between  the  incarnate 
and  the  discarnate  condition.  The  real  question  that  concerns  the  man 
who  wishes  the  problem  solved  is  whether  our  personally  known  con- 
sciousness in  any  way  survives  and  exhibits  that  mnemonic  connection 
between  the  present  and  future  condition  of  the  soul  which  may  be 
called  personal  identity. 

That  the  case  rests  upon  showing  the  fact  of  personal  survival  or 
the  continuity  of  personal  consciousness  ought  to  be  apparent  from  the 
difference  between  the  doctrines  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and 
the  conservation  of  energy,  though  they  are  closely  related  to  each 
other,  and  their  relation  to  the  materialistic  theory. 

The  indestructibility  of  matter  depends  for  its  proof  upon  the  reten- 
tion of  some  identity  in  all  its  changes.  Some  property  must  remain 
the  same  in  the  resolution  of  a  compound  into  its  elements  in  order  to 
suppose  that  the  resultant  is  identical  with  the  antecedent  material  sub- 
stance. The  property  on  which  physicists  rely  on  determining  this 
doctrine  is  weight.  Matter  retains  its  weight  in  all  its  metamorphic 
changes  and  so  we  infer  that  it  is  indestructible.  There  may  be  other 
properties  persistent  in  this  way,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  take  any  ac- 
count of  them.  That  of  weight  is  sufficient  to  prove  the  persistence 
of  matter.  One  element  of  identity  suffices  to  make  out  the  case  and 
without  it  we  should  have  no  reason  to  believe  in  the  indestructibility 
of  matter.  The  view  that  was  so  long  held  would  be  quite  a  rational 
one,  namely,  that  matter  was  a  phenomenal  and  transient  substance, 
and  the  way  would  thus  be  opened  for  a  theory  of  its  creation. 

If  then  we  could  show  with  the  proof  of  the  indestructibility  of  mat- 
ter and  that  of  all  substantive  reality,  that  consciousness  was  the  at- 
tribute either  of  some  elementary  matter  or  of  some  reality,  simple  or 
complex,  other  than  matter,  we  should  have  probably  an  invulnerable 
argument  for  its  personal  survival.  Its  ad  hominem  importance  could 
not  be  denied.  But  the  difficulty  of  showing  that  an  independent  sub- 
ject of  any  kind  is  necessary  to  account  for  the  fact  of  consciousness 
makes  it  imperative  to  prove  the  fact  of  conscious  survival  as  a  con- 
dition of  saying  anything  about  its  subject. 

But  this  necessity  is  still  more  apparent  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy.  If  we  were  assured  of  a  perfect  qualitative 
identity  and  convertibility  between  antecedent  and  consequent  either  in 
material  phenomena  or  in  mental  and  physical  phenomena,  as  already 
shown,  we  might  hope  to  have  an  effective  argument  for  the  continu- 
ance of  personal  consciousness  under  any  supposition  of  its  ground. 


SPIRITUALISM.  4S7 

It  would  not  affect  the  case  if  its  ground  were  material  or  immaterial, 
simple  or  complex,  or  whether  reincarnation  or  individual  existence 
were  supposed.  But  the  fact  that  the  qualitative  interpretation  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  is  either  doubtful  or  all  but  abandoned  indicates 
that  we  have  no  positive  assurance  that  the  requisite  identity  exists 
between  the  different  members  of  the  phenomenal  series.  All  that 
seems  to  be  established  is  that  certain  definite  uniformities  are  manifest 
in  the  causal  interactions  of  realities.  Some  remain  satisfied  with  an 
affirmation  of  the  quantitative  identity  of  the  members,  but  fail  to 
realize  that  even  this  modification  of  the  doctrine  must  carry  with  it 
some  assumption  of  qualitative  identity  in  order  to  justify  the  theory 
of  quantitative  identity  in  its  true  conception.  Hence  the  utmost  that 
seems  assured  is  the  fact  of  uniformity  of  phenomenal  relation  without 
supposing  that  identity  in  the  terms  has  been  established,  though  each 
term  may  retain  its  quantitative  or  qualitative  identity  in  time  and 
space.  Such  a  qualification  of  the  doctrine  implies  the  possibility  that 
qualitative  manifestations  may  arise  and  disappear,  as  they  certainly  do 
in  the  composition  and  dissolution  of  organisms,  and  it  remains  to 
show  what  qualities  remain  intact  in  the  phenomenal  series  as  weight 
remains  in  substantive  transformations.  In  this  situation  we  shall 
have  to  prove  the  fact  of  personal  continuity  in  order  to  eliminate  or 
qualify  the  sceptical  interpretation  of  the  conservation  of  energy. 
When  the  origin  and  disappearance  of  certain  qualitative  phenomena 
are  certain  in  spite  of  the  doctrine  of  conservation,  it  must  be  a  ques- 
tion of  fact  to  decide  whether  any  particular  quality  or  activity  is  con- 
sistently persistent  with  the  general  application  of  conservation  which 
is  in  fact  an  abstraction. 

5.  But  if  materialism  cannot  prove  itself  by  an  application  of  the 
method  of  difference,  does  the  situation  fare  any  better  for  spiritualism  ? 
All  that  can  be  said  philosophically  in  answer  to  this  question  is  that 
the  negative  evidence  afforded  in  the  difficulties  of  the  materialistic 
hypothesis  do  not  suffice  for  any  proof  of  the  spiritualistic  theory.  But 
the  demonstration  of  the  inability  of  materialism  to  establish  its  own 
claims  indicates  just  what  the  problem  is  and  suggests  what  has  to  be 
done  if  the  rival  doctrine  is  to  be  maintained.  I  grant  that  there  is 
no  scientific  disproof  of  materialism  possible  except  by  the  isolation  of 
individual  consciousness  and  the  evidence  of  its  personal  identity  in 
survival  of  death.  Whether  this  be  either  possible  or  a  fact  it  is  not  my 
purpose  to  assert.  Bui  I  may  indicate  the  conditions  under  which  such 
proof  is  conceivable. 

Since  we  have  no  direct  evidence  of  the  existence  of  external  con- 


4-SS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sciousnessand  no  evidence  direct  or  indirect  of  its  extinction,  and  since 
we  cannot  attest  our  own  decease  either  to  ourselves  or  others,  the  only 
hope  of  "  proving"  any  survival  at  all  must  be  through  the  inductive 
interpretation  by  the  living  of  effects  produced  in  the  physical  world 
by  discarnate  spirits,  if  they  exist,  and  if  such  effects  be  possible.  If 
they  are  not  possible,  assuming  the  possibility  of  survival,  no  living 
person  can  obtain  evidence  of  survival,  and  deceased  persons,  if  they 
actually  survived,  could  only  directly  attest  to  themselves  their  own 
survival.  Their  only  hope  of  proving  their  continuance  after  death  to 
the  living  would  be  some  effect  in  the  physical  universe  that  was  suf- 
ficient to  establish  personal  identty.  The  evidence  of  their  survival 
must  be  just  these  physical  effects,  however  determined. 

The  difficulty  of  effecting  such  a  result  is  quite  apparent.  What 
we  know  of  consciousness  and  its  action  on  matter  is  connected  with 
organic  bodies  and  all  evidence  is  lacking  for  the  direct  action  of  con- 
sciousness on  inorganic  matter.  Unless  this  action  is  possible  there  is 
no  hope  that  a  discarnate  consciousness,  if  it  existed,  should  reveal 
itself  through  inorganic  physical  effects.  Even  if  it  could  produce 
effects  on  dead  matter  they  would  have  no  evidential  value  unless  they 
were  more  than  simple  mechanical  movement  and  were  teleological 
coordinations  indicating  intelligence.  But  mere  intelligence  would  not 
suffice.  It  must  be  evidence  of  a  particular  intelligence  representing 
the  identity  of  a  given  deceased  person,  and  there  is  no  definite  stan- 
dard to  determine  how  much  evidence  may  be  required  under  such 
circumstances.  Even  if  mechanical  effects  through  inorganic  matter 
were  possible  for  a  discarnate  soul  the  task  of  proving  its  identity  with 
the  past  would  be  extremely  difficult  in  the  face  of  what  we  know  about 
the  relation  of  consciousness  to  matter,  or  even  the  relation  of  mind  to 
mind.  The  more  natural  direction  for  effort  and  effect  wrould  be 
through  organic  matter,  as  most  nearly  related  to  impressions  from  con- 
sciousness, and  if  the  brain  be  a  mere  channel  for  the  transmission  of 
energy  to  the  motor  system  it  would  seem  possible  to  hope  for  such  a 
mediation.  But  here  the  discarnate  soul  would  be  confronted  with  the 
fact  that  the  organism  is  already  in  possession  of  another  and  living 
soul,  and  this  agent  would  either  have  to  be  dispossessed  or  the  effect 
in  the  physical  world  would  have  to  be  produced  through  its  inter- 
mediation. Whether  such  a  thing  is  either  possible  or  a  fact,  it  is  not 
yet  time  to  assert  with  confidence.  But  there  are  some  facts  which 
point  toward  its  possibility.  There  is  the  fact  of  subliminal  hyperes- 
thesia which  represents  the  accessibility  of  the  subject  to  impressions 
far  more  delicate  and  refined  than  those  in  our  normal  sensibilitv  and 


SPIRITUALISM.  489 

"  perception."  This  is  not  the  place  to  quote  evidences  of  this  fact, 
but  any  work  that  shows  a  study  of  psychopathology  will  exhibit  them 
in  abundance.  This  hyperesthesia  may  extend  even  to  the  capacity 
for  receiving  supernormal  information  not  amenable  to  the  normal 
action  of  sense.  This  reception  of  hyperassthesic  impression  we  find 
associated  with  what  is  called  subliminal  mental  action,  a  process 
apparently  duplicating  all  that  we  know  of  consciousness,  except  the 
normal  mnemonic  recognition.  Now  it  is  admitted  that,  when  the  con- 
trol of  the  motor  system  by  the  normal  consciousness  is  relaxed,  the 
subliminal  mental  functions  may  assume  sovereignty  and  give  expres- 
sion to  ideas  below  the  threshold  of  the  normal  "  perception"  or  not 
observable  by  the  normal  consciousness.  Sometimes  the  normal  state 
may  be  aware  of  the  motor  action  and  its  result  after  it  is  effected,  but 
has  no  knowledge  of  the  influence  effecting  the  result.  That  is,  it  may 
be  aware  of  what  is  going  on  but  not  aware  of  any  conscious  causation 
in  the  case.  Sometimes  it  is  not  aware  of  even  this  much  and  cannot 
contemplate  the  results  with  any  other  feeling  than  that  with  which  it 
observes  the  movements  of  foreign  objects.  Sometimes  the  normal 
consciousness  may  be  totally  suspended  and  automatic  or  subliminal 
results  are  produced  which,  but  for  the  testimony  of  others,  would 
never  be  connected  with  the  same  organic  mechanism.  There  are  thus 
various  types  of  subliminal  action  supplanting  the  normal  control  of 
the  organism.  If  now  any  favorable  rapport  of  this  subliminal  with  a 
transcendental  consciousness  should  be  established  by  means  of  its 
hyperaesthesic  condition,  especially  if  anything  like  telepathic  percip- 
ience  is  possible,  and  control  of  the  motor  system  should  remain 
intact,  a  discarnate  soul  might  effect  results  in  the  sensible  world  lead- 
ing to  its  identification,  though  this  had  to  be  produced  by  subliminal 
intermediation.  In  any  case  the  facts  would  have  to  represent  some- 
thing transcending  the  mnemonic  experience  of  the  subject  through 
which  they  were  communicated.  On  the  other  hand,  both  the  sub- 
liminal and  the  normal  mental  conti'ol  of  the  motor  system  might  be 
dispossessed  and  only  the  automatic  conditions  of  the  organism  left 
intact,  if  the  vital  functions  are  fortunate  enough  not  to  be  suspended 
or  deranged  by  the  process  of  dispossession,  as  they  are  by  the  dispos- 
session of  death.  The  capacity  and  habits  of  this  automatic  system  for 
responding  to  mental  action,  whether  normal  or  subliminal,  shows  a 
delicate  set  of  conditions  and  with  the  dispossession  of  both  normal  and 
subliminal  control  over  them,  its  hyperesthesia  or  supernormal  con- 
dition might  expose  it  to  the  influence  of  an  outside  mind.  If  such  a 
situation  should  arise,  and  if  an  individual  consciousness  did  have  the 


49°  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

fortune  to  survive  death,  rapport  with  that  automatic  condition  might 
enable  a  discarnate  consciousness  to  impress  its  influence  upon  it  suffi- 
ciently to  prove  identity  or  continuance  after  death.  This  would 
depend  wholly  upon  the  character  of  the  effects  produced  in  the  sen- 
sible world.  They  must  be  of  that  nature  which  will  prove  personal 
identity  and  which  transcend  explanation  by  the  normal  processes  of 
experience,  and  they  must  represent  a  mnemonic  connection  with  an 
incarnate  past,  as  memory  is  the  condition  of  personal  identity  in  all 
conditions,  that  is,  such  personal  identity  as  can  have  any  moral  value 
for  consciousness.  In  any  case,  whether  through  subliminal  inter- 
mediation or  the  dispossession  of  both  subliminal  and  normal  control 
of  the  motor  system,  the  results  would  be  affected  by  the  limitations  of 
the  medium  through  which  they  were  produced  and  the  abnormal 
conditions,  physiological  or  psychological,  under  which  they  were 
realized. 

The  condition  which  we  have  here  conceived  as  necessary  for  a 
surviving  consciousness  to  produce  effects  in  the  sensible  physical 
world  indicate  an  abnormal  situation.  That  is  to  say  we  have  to  as- 
sume abnormal  mental  and  physical  conditions  as  a  requisite  for  any 
other  influence  in  the  physical  world  than  that  which  is  exercised  by 
the  normal  and  subliminal  action  of  the  subject.  There  will  be  no 
question  about  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  these  effects  in  an 
evidential  form  unless  the  production  of  them  should  exclude  explana- 
tion by  normal  and  subliminal  action,  and  if  they  are  conceived  as  pos- 
sible at  all,  there  is  no  alternative  to  the  admission  that  such  conditions 
must  be  abnormal  with  all  the  difficulties  and  limitations  involved. 
The  disintegration  of  the  normal  personality,  and  the  disorganization 
of  the  regular  channels  of  motor  impulses  and  actions  and  the  liability 
to  all  sorts  of  abnormal  interjections  of  physiological  and  psychological 
automatisms,  and  even  hallucinations,  would  be  the  most  natural  expec- 
tation in  such  cases,  so  that  one  might  even  suppose  a  priori  that 
there  would  be  little  chance  of  adequate  evidence  ever  coming  through 
from  a  supersensible  existence  to  indicate  the  survival  of  any  rational 
consciousness  in  a  way  to  make  its  integrity  respectable.  This  was 
apparent  to  Kant  who  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  the  apparently 
supernormal  "  phenomena"  of  Swedenborg,  but  saw  at  the  same  time 
that  many  of  his  experiences  were  subjective  productions  of  his  own 
mind  and  to  be  classed  accordingly,  though  the  conception  of  sec- 
ondary personality  was  not  then  known  and  has  only  shown  its  signifi- 
cance in  the  limitations  of  spiritualistic  theory  in  recent  times.  The 
influence   of   Leibnitz  on  Kant's   conception  of  all   subjective   action 


(   V/NIVER8/TY  ) 

SPIRITUALISM.     V^L/ff^x^/      49* 

would  lead  him  to  hold  that  whatever  came  into  the  mind  from 
without  would  most  naturally  undergo  a  modification  determined  by 
the  nature  of  this  subject  and  its  laws  of  action  and  reaction,  and  he 
would  even  not  admit  the  existence  of  any  external  reality  at  all  unless 
some  compulsory  data  of  consciousness  made  it  insane  to  accept  any 
other  alternative.  The  scientific  and  philosophic  assumption  remains 
the  same  to-day  reinforced  by  many  thousands  of  facts  which  limit  the 
overconfident  manners  in  our  description  of  the  external  world  even  of 
the  sensible  type,  to  say  nothing  of  our  limitations  in  regard  to  the 
supersensible,  though  the  consciousness  that  sensation  does  not  exhaust 
the  meaning  of  even  the  sensible  world  might  teach  us  humility  when 
tempted  by  dogmatic  tendencies  in  regard  to  the  supersensible  and 
what  it  might  effect  through  abnormal  conditions.  But  whatever  the 
influences  that  determined  Kant's  conception,  he  expressly  indicated 
in  a  general  way  the  conditions  of  any  definite  relation  with  a  super- 
sensible world  of  "spirit."  Caird,  in  calling  attention  to  the  fact, 
enlarges  upon  it  more  explicitly.  Speaking  of  the  conditions  which 
obtain  in  the  commerce  and  reciprocity  of  ideas  between  living  beings 
constituting  a  moral  and  "  spiritual"  community  in  actual  life  where 
physical  conditions  of  a  common  character  affect  the  possibility  of  this 
communion,  Caird  represents  Kant's  view  in  the  following  terms  : 

"  Supposing  this  view  to  be  true"  (the  actual  influence  of  the  spir- 
itual world),  "  it  would  follow  that,  even  now  in  the  present  world,  the 
spiritual  subject  must  take  the  place  among  the  spiritual  substances  of 
the  universe  which  is  appropriate  for  it  according  to  moral  laws  ;  and 
it  must  take  that  place  with  the  same  necessity  with  which  material 
bodies  determine  their  respective  places  according  to  the  laws  of 
motion.  And  if  in  a  future  state  the  community  between  the  soul  and 
the  material  world  should  be  broken  off,  the  moral  laws  that  already 
determine  its  relations  in  this  world  would  continue  to  operate  without 
a  break.  The  only  difficulty  that  remains  unexplained  is,  how  we  are 
to  reconcile  the  existence  of  such  a  spiritual  community  with  the  fact  that 
we  are  so  seldom  conscious  of  it.  For  the  spiritual  world  is  present  to 
man,  if  at  all,  only  in  occasional  glimpses,  which,  besides,  have  often 
a  somewhat  uncertain  and  even  irrational  character.  This,  however, 
is  already  explained  by  what  has  been  said  of  the  nature  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  man  as  contrasted  with  that  of  purely  spiritual  beings. 
For  what  we  experience  as  spirits  will  not  naturally  enter  into  that 
consciousness  which  we  have  of  ourselves  as  men  ;  or  if  it  does  so  enter 
at  all,  it  will  only  be  under  abnormal  conditions,  and  even  then  the  inti- 
mations from  the  spirit  world  will  necessarily  take  the  form  of  the  con- 


492  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sciousness  into  which  they  intrude.  Spiritual  realities  will  be  pictured 
as  objects  and  events  in  the  natural  world,  and  all  the  imperfections  of 
the  medium  will  affect  the  vision.  For  men  in  general  such  percep- 
tions will  have  something  of  the  character  of  disease  ;  and  if  there  are 
a  few  exceptional  individuals  who  are  so  constituted  as  to  be  continu- 
ously conscious  of  spiritual  influences,  their  minds  will  be  so  much 
drawn  out  of  proper  balance  as  to  the  things  of  this  world  by  the  con- 
fusing presence  of  another,  that  they  will  often  be  regarded  by  other 
men  as  insane.  In  this  way  it  only  needs  a  little  ingenuity  to  explain 
all  the  facts  of  ghost-seeing  in  accordance  with  our  primary  assump- 
tions as  to  the  relations  of  the  two  worlds.  '  For  metaphysical  hypoth- 
eses have  wonderful  pliancy ;  and  it  would  show  great  want  of  inge- 
nuity not  to  be  able  to  adapt  this  hypothesis  to  every  story  of 
supernatural  visitations,  and  that  without  taking  any  trouble  to  inves- 
tigate its  truth,  which  in  many  cases  it  would  be  impossible,  and  in  yet 
more  would  be  discourteous  to  attempt.' " 

In  the  Anticabala  Kant  points  to  an  alternative  explanation  of  phe- 
nomena pretending  to  be  effects  of  a  transcendental  mind  in  the  phys- 
ical world  and  between  the  two  alternative  possibilities  does  not  decide 
as  to  the  facts.  Dreams  and  hallucinations,  he  thinks,  explain  so  much 
of  the  pretentious  claims  for  "  spiritualistic"  communion  that  there  is 
no  evidence  for  any  other  more  reliable  facts,  and  he  would  have  added 
secondary  personality  to  the  list  of  difficulties  had  he  known  it  as  we 
do.  In  later  chapters  of  his  "  Dreams  of  a  Ghost-seer"  he  speaks  re- 
spectfully of  the  possibility  of  such  an  interaction  between  the  physical 
and  spiritual  worlds,  though  dubious  of  its  evidence  and  saving  his 
reputation  for  sanity  by  appropriating  some  of  the  materialist's  useful 
ridicule  of  the  case.  But  he  nevertheless  frankly  admits  that  materi- 
alism cannot  be  dogmatic  on  the  matter  and  points  to  phenomena  and 
suppositions  based  thereon  which  must  be  reckoned  with  before  any 
form  of  "spiritualism"  can  prove  itself,  and  conditions  all  evidential 
matter  indicating  its  truth  upon  abnormal  mental  conditions.  He 
simply  indicates  that  philosophically  one  side  of  the  question  is  as 
possible  as  the  other.  Such  a  thing  as  collecting  data  or  evidence  to 
prove  one  or  the  other  of  the  alternatives  did  not  occur  to  him,  or  if  it 
did  he  was  not  disposed  to  undertake  the  task.  He  was  content  to 
deal  with  the  problem  in  a  speculative  and  not  a  scientific  manner, 
and  this  was  probably  all  that  was  either  possible  or  called  for"  at  his 
time.  The  extent  to  which  his  general  philosophical  point  of  view 
with  that  of  Leibnitz  has  been  accepted  in  regard  to  the  form  which 
all  "  knowledge"  must  take  shows  clearly  enough  that  the  conditions 


SPIRITUALISM.  493 

must  be  very  exceptional  if  any  influence  from  a  transcendental  world 
could  be  transmissible,  and  that,  representing  either  a  normal  or  an 
abnormal  situation,  the  influence  must  undergo  the  modifications  which 
the  nature  of  the  subject  inevitably  produces.  The  proof  of  personal 
identity  in  such  circumstances  will  be  difficult  and  must  depend  upon 
that  fortunate  set  of  circumstances  which  will  enable  the  memory  of 
the  past  to  retain  its  integrity  in  the  transmission  sufficiently  to  be 
recognized. 

The  difficulties  of  the  problem  will  be  better  appreciated  if  we  will 
examine  the  limitations  of  communication  between  living  beings  right 
here  in  the  physical  world.  We  usually  assume  that  this  is  quite  easy. 
It  is  such  a  common  matter  of  social  life  that  we  forget  the  real  con- 
ditions and  limitations  of  all  communication  whatsoever  between  mind 
and  mind.  The  ancient  Greeks,  after  scepticism  had  shown  the  rela- 
tivity of  "  knowledge,"  raised  the  question  whether  virtue  and  "  knowl- 
edge "  could  be  taught,  a  question  apparently  absurd  to  most  men,  but 
perfectly  rational  to  all  who  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  human  experi- 
ence. We  take  it  in  common  life  as  an  axiom  that  "  knowledge  "  can 
be  taught  and  that  ideas  can  be  communicated  with  ease  from  mind  to 
mind.  But  there  is  no  more  mistaken  doctrine.  The  fact  is  that 
nothing  can  be  taught.  Everything  has  to  be  learned.  We  cannot 
communicate  ideas  at  all.  We  can  only  make  signs  or  produce  sounds, 
and  in  the  process  of  experience  we  have  managed  to  agree  upon  the 
symbols  of  what  is  in  our  minds  and  the  use  of  signs  effects  a  con- 
dition in  the  physical  world  that  is  interpreted  by  the  mind  to  whom 
we  are  supposed  to  communicate  ideas.  We  have  only  to  meet  a  sav- 
age or  foreigner  to  see  our  helplessness  in  the  matter  of  communicat- 
ing ideas,  unless  we  can  use  signs,  and  even  when  we  have  agreed 
upon  our  symbols  in  general,  a  common  experience  and  personal  in- 
sight are  the  indispensable  qualifications  to  intellectual  commerce. 
This  is  perfectly  clear  when  we  reflect  for  a  moment,  but  we  forget  it 
when  passing  judgment  upon  the  problem  of  communication  between 
a  spiritual  and  a  material  world.  When  the  difficulties  are  so  great  in 
the  physical  world,  requiring  long  experience  to  both  qualify  us  for 
understanding  signs  when  used  and  to  control  the  motor  organism  in 
the  expression  of  our  own  thoughts,  we  must  not  wonder  at  the  limi- 
tations under  which  discarnate  consciousness  would  have  to  labor  in 
the  production  of  effects  in  the  physical  world  adequate  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  its  identity. 

In  this  discussion  of  the  conditions  for  "proving"  spiritualism,  I 
am  not  concerned  with  the  question  whether  the  theory  is  provable  in 


494  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

fact  or  not.  I  have  only  been  showing  that,  in  the  contest  between 
materialism  and  spiritualism,  the  former  stands  no  chance  whatever 
of  ' '  proof  "  and  that  only  the  latter  can  offer  a  situation  or  possible 
conditions  for  it  in  known  facts,  if  the  soul  should  actually  survive  and 
retain  consciousness,  a  possibility  that  cannot  be  denied  by  the  ma- 
terialist with  any  show  of  dogmatism  because  the  only  evidence  for  his 
theory  is  in  the  method  of  agreement  which  never  "  proves"  a  case. 
It  can  only  decide  the  direction  of  rational  belief  until  the  method  of 
difference  has  decided  whether  one  term  of  the  coexistent  facts  is  or  is 
not  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  other  for  its  existence.  Whether 
spiritualism  can  actually  "  prove  "  itself  scientifically  I  am  not  compe- 
tent to  decide,  but  I  think  the  "  phenomena  "  of  abnormal  psychology 
show  that  it  is  possible,  if  consciousness  actually  survives  death,  and 
we  should  only  have  to  consider  the  evidence  that  may  be  put  in  for 
the  alleged  fact  of  this  persistence,  accepting  it  if  satisfactory  and  re- 
jecting it  if  it  is  not.  There  is  certainly  a  larger  and  better  qualified 
body  of  alleged  facts  for  consideration  in  this  direction  than  any  that 
Kant  was  called  upon  to  estimate,  and  if  Kant  found  it  as  difficult  to 
doubt  as  to  believe  the  conclusion  there  is  a  justifiable  malice  in  re- 
minding his  disciples  of  his  fairness.  It  is  certainly  strange  in  this 
matter,  however,  that  the  idealist,  who  pretends  to  sneer  so  contemptu- 
ously at  materialism  and  all  its  children,  should  outdo  the  materialists 
in  his  scepticism  of  such  a  possibility  as  survival  and  even  reiterate 
with  more  than  dogmatic  fervor  all  the  facts  of  the  materialistic  theory 
without  permitting  himself  to  be  called  by  the  right  name.  He  has 
simply  forgotten  the  cosmopolitan  and  philosophic  temper  of  his  mas- 
ter, Kant,  who  saw  the  possibility  but  had  not  sufficient  evidence  at 
his  command  to  decide  the  question,  while  he  recognized  it  as  a  legiti- 
mate problem  though  insoluble  at  his  time. 

However  this  may  be  I  am  discussing  the  philosophic,  not  the 
scientific  side  of  the  question.  The  scientific  consideration  of  the 
problem  requires  us  to  ascertain  and  analyze  alleged  facts  purporting 
to  "  prove  "  the  truth  of  survival  rather  than  its  possibility  and  consis- 
tency with  other  accepted  facts  assumed  to  antagonize  it.  It  is  not  my 
purpose  to  undertake  this  task  but  only  to  estimate  the  relative  strength 
of  the  two  theories  in  terms  of  undisputed  facts  and  the  assumptions 
that  are  made  in  all  attempts  at  explanation. 

6.  It  may  be  important  in  this  connection  to  examine  briefly  Kant's 
position  on  the  subject  of  the  soul  as  discussed  in  the  Kritik,  and 
from  the  result  of  this  examination  we  may  find  additional  negative 
evidence  for  the  spiritualistic  theory.     I  do  so,  however,  for  no  other 


SPIHI7  UALISM.  495 

reason  than  the  fact  that  idealists  generally  have  supposed  that  Kant's 
argument  has  put  an  end  to  the  discussion  of  the  subject  in  the  philo- 
sophic field.  Whether  this  is  true  or  not,  it  is  a  fact  that  Kantian 
idealists  have  usually  abandoned  the  discussion  and  virtually  grant  that 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  on  the  affirmative  of  it,  and  philosophers 
generally  acquiesce  in  the  negative  verdict.  It  is  interesting  to  remark, 
however,  that  in  doing  so  they  have  actually  assumed  the  validity  of  a 
point  of  view  for  discussing  the  subject  which  Kant  explicitly  denied 
and  repudiated,  while  they  maintain  silence  on  the  argument  which  he 
regarded  as  valid  !  What  Kant  regarded  as  futile  was  the  argument 
from  what  he  called  "  rational  psychology."  When  sifted  down  to  its 
proper  import  this  was  the  application  of  formal  logic  to  conceptions 
introspectively  determined.  This  criticism  is  unquestionably  true  and 
effective.  His  contention  was,  in  his  own  phraseology,  that  conscious- 
ness could  not  immediately  determine  the  simplicity  of  the  ego,  and  as 
the  fact  of  this  simplicity  was  presumably  necessary  to  the  proof  of  im- 
mortality, there  could  be  no  evidence  in  consciousness  introspectively 
determined  for  this  survival.  The  force  of  this  argument  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  assumed  simplicity  of  consciousness  as  a  function  was  not 
evidence  of  the  simplicity  of  the  subject.  The  subject  might  be  com- 
plex or  composite  and  the  function  simple,  as  the  resultant  in  the  com- 
position of  forces.  This  is  conclusive  enough,  on  the  assumptions  and 
conceptions  generally  prevalent  in  the  metaphysical  physics  of  that 
time,  and  I  think  is  true  on  any  philosophic  assumption  but  one, 
namely,  the  Herbartian  notion  of  the  "real"  and  that  view  of  the 
atom  which  holds  that  it  can  have  but  one  simple  property,  and,  vice 
versa,  that  the  presence  of  a  simple  quality  is  evidence  of  a  simple 
subject.  This  view  was  not  prevalent  at  Kant's  time  and  he  can 
hardly  be  held  responsible  for  not  considering  and  refuting  it.  But  I 
think  that  he  either  misconceived  or  misrepresented  the  dogmatists  in 
the  matter.  Their  tendency  was  to  argue  precisely  as  if  they  assumed 
the  convertibility  evidentially  of  the  simple  in  the  "phenomenon" 
with  the  simple  in  the  subject.  This  would  mean  that  the  real  point 
of  difference  with  the  contention  of  Kant  turned  precisely  on  the  po- 
sition that  simplicity  of  consciousness  did  imply  simplicity  of  subject, 
a  conception  that  grew  explicitly  into  the  doctrine  of  Herbart  and  rep- 
resents the  implicit  view  of  the  "  rationalists."  Kant's  argument  was 
thus  only  a  refutation  based  upon  the  force  of  assumptions  which  did 
not  represent  the  only  contention  made  by  the  "  rationalists,"  though 
they  had  not  explicitly  developed  as  clearly  as  they  might  have  done 
the  real  import  of  their  position.     What  the  "rationalists"  aimed  to 


496  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

do  was  to  present  an  ad  hominem  possibility  for  the  existence  of  the 
soul  as  something  other  than  the  organism,  and  they  assumed  what  the 
materialists  had  to  admit  on  their  own  philosophy,  namely,  that  a 
simple  individual  atom  survived  all  its  combinations.  Now  if  the  soul 
could  be  shown  to  be  an  indivisible  simple  substance  it  too  must  be 
imperishable  and  survive  its  tenancy  of  the  body.  So  much  was  in- 
evitable on  the  materialist's  premises,  though  the  "  rationalist"  with 
his  theistic  position  was  not  obliged  to  commit  his  fortunes  to  the  in- 
destructibility of  the  atom.  He  might  make  consciousness  and  its  sub- 
ject what  he  pleased.  But  in  order  to  supply  a  positive  "  empirical " 
content  for  the  argument  in  behalf  of  the  simplicity  of  the  soul  he 
went  on  to  use  the  assumed  simplicity  of  consciousness  as  evidence  of 
it,  the  conclusion  being  true  on  the  assumption  that  all  material  "  phe- 
nomena" and  functions,  being  resultants  of  composition,  must  be  com- 
plex and  transient,  and  that  there  is  satisfactory  evidence  for  the  sim- 
plicity of  consciousness.  That  is  to  say,  on  the  assumption  that  only 
simple  subjects  can  have  simple  functions  and,  vice  versa,  only  simple 
functions  can  be  evidence  of  a  simple  subject,  the  appeal  to  conscious- 
ness and  its  simplicity  as  a  fact  would  be  conclusive,  provided  that  we 
can  trust  the  deliverance  of  consciousness  on  the  matter  of  its  sim- 
plicity. But  Kant  says  nothing  about  this  possible  scepticism  of  the 
mind's  capacity  to  introspect  the  simplicity  of  its  function,  perhaps  be- 
cause it  was  not  necessary  to  his  argument,  though  it  is  quite  as  pos- 
sible to  question  this  capacity  of  consciousness  to  determine  its  sim- 
plicitv  as  it  may  be  to  vitiate  the  inference  from  that  simplicity,  once 
granted,  to  the  simplicity  of  the  subject. 

That  Kant  probably  misunderstood  the  real  position  and  contention 
of  the  "  rationalists  "  is  apparent  from  his  treatment  of  Mendelssohn's 
doctrine,  or  rather  argument,  which  is  accepted  as  the  representative 
of  the  "rational  psychology."  In  his  reply  to  Mendelssohn,  Kant's 
position  is  so  manifestly  absurd  as  to  raise  the  serious  question  whether 
he  ever  understood  the  problem  at  all  and  whether  he  has  not  so  mis- 
represented the  whole  conception  of  it  as  both  to  cause  all  the  con- 
fusion in  philosophy  since  his  time  and  to  divert  the  human  mind  from 
the  conception  of  what  it  is  now  and  was  before  his  time.  The  con- 
ception of  the  "  soul"  as  an  "  intensive  quantity  "  (intensive  Grosse) 
that  might  gradually  vanish  (verschwinden)  as  a  reply  to  Mendelssohn 
is  so  absolutely  absurd,  as  an  implied  representation  of  the  case,  that 
we  wonder  that  Kant  ever  got  within  gunshot  of  a  philosophic  prob- 
lem. "  Intensive  quantity  "  applies  to  "  phenomena  "  and  not  to  sub- 
stance in  its  elementary  conception.     The  term  "soul"  was  a  name 


SPIRITUALISM.  497 

for  an  indivisible  substance  and  not  for  a  "  phenomenon  "  of  any  kind. 
It  was  simply  begging  the  question  to  suppose  the  possibility  that  the 
"soul"  should  be  an  "intensive  quantity"  and  simply  betrayed  en- 
tire ignorance  of  what  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  previous  phi- 
losophy had  been.  I  am  not  saying  or  implying  in  this  argument 
that  the  soul  cannot  be  an  "  intensive  quantity"  as  well  as  its  "  phe- 
nomena." That  may  very  well  be  as  a  fact,  so  far  as  the  contention 
here  made  is  concerned,  though  I  think  it  absurd  and  untrue,  but  it  is 
no  refutation  of  the  assumption  of  its  simplicity  to  assume  that  con- 
sciousness may  be  an  "  intensive  quantity."  Mendelssohn's  simple 
substance  was  indestructible  because  it  was  indivisible,  and  indivisible 
things  could  not  vanish.  In  fact  indivisibility,  indestructibility,  and 
simplicity  were  convertible  terms,  and  no  simple  substance  could 
gradually  disappear,  if  the  indestructibility  of  the  atom  and  the  con- 
servation of  energy  were  to  be  accepted  as  either  proved  beyond 
question  or  as  a  priori  truths.  I  am  not  saying  that  there  are  any 
such  substances.  For  all  that  I  know  or  care,  even  atoms  may  be 
destructible  or  gradually  vanish.  But  it  was  the  definition  of  a  simple 
indivisible  substance  that  it  should  not  be  destructible,  so  that  if  the 
soul  were  once  admitted  to  comply  with  those  terms  the  conception 
of  gradual  disappearance  would  no  more  apply  than  that  of  abrupt 
annihilation.  Gradual  disappearance  can  apply  to  the  divisible,  to 
complex  substance,  but  to  simple  substance  never.  Mendelssohn  is 
invulnerable  on  this  point.  Whether  the  soul  exists  and  is  simple 
are  different  questions  which  may  be  disputed,  but  that  it  persists,  if 
it  exists  and  is  simple,  cannot  be  disputed  on  materialistic  assumptions. 
That  Kant  shows  his  misconception  of  the  case  is  evident  in  his  state? 
ment  about  the  intensive  nature  of  consciousness  which  may  gradually 
vanish.  He  shows  two  fatal  errors  here.  The  first  is  the  virtual 
identification  of  the  "  soul  "  and  consciousness,  which  is  absurd,  and 
inexcusable  even  on  his  own  philosophy.  "  Soul"  is  the  subject  and 
consciousness  is  the  name  for  a  function,  and  the  question  was  not 
primarily  whether  consciousness  would  vanish,  but  whether  the 
"soul"  vanished.  It  was  clear  in  the  "phenomenon"  of  sleep 
that  consciousness  did  vanish,  but  that  it  was  revivable,  and  the  ques- 
tion was  whether  anything  survived  death  that  made  consciousness  re- 
vivable, not  whether  it  vanished  in  such  a  change.  The  second  error 
was  that  Mendelssohn  and  the  "  rationalists"  were  not  talking  about 
consciousness,  but  the  subject  of  it.  They  might  well  admit  and  did 
admit  that  consciousness  vanished  in  sleep,  while  the  subject  did  not, 
and  they  might  admit  that  consciousness  permanently  vanished  at  death 
32 


49 S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

while  the  "soul"  survived.  There  might  be  no  personal  interest  in 
such  a  survival,  any  more  than  in  Plato's  immortality,  but  that  is  not 
the  question.  The  primary  point  is  whether  the  subject  survives  as 
the  condition  of  any  reoccurrence  of  consciousness,  and  Mendelssohn 
could  have  an  a  priori  possibility  of  that  reoccurrence  after  death,  if  he 
could  be  assured  that  the  subject  was  not  dissolved  by  it.  But  whether 
he  could  prove  either  this  survival  or  the  simplicity  of  the  subject  or 
not,  the  assumption  of  a  simple  indivisible  and  therefore  invanishable 
subject,  on  the  simplicity  of  consciousness,  whether  it  be  an  "  intensive 
quantity  "  or  not,  was  consistent  and  rational.  Invanishability,  being 
convertible  with  indivisibility  in  the  philosophic  parlance  of  the  time, 
guaranteed  survival,  if  the  doctrine  of  the  persistence  of  simple  sub- 
stance were  true,  and  so  would  be  a  refutation  of  the  allegation  that 
consciousness  was  a  function  of  the  organism,  provided  that  you  could 
show  that  consciousness  was  a  simple  function  and  implied  a  simple 
subject.  What  the  evidence  of  this  simplicity  is  was  another  question. 
But  the  simplicity  once  granted  there  was  no  escape  from  his  conclusion. 
Moreover,  in  supposing  that,  because  consciousness  might  gradually 
vanish,  the  "soul"  might  gradually  vanish  also,  Kant  practically 
admitted  that  the  simplicity  of  consciousness,  which  he  actually 
accepted,  implied  the  simplicity  of  its  subject.  He  here  applied 
the  principle  of  identity  in  his  argument  and  ought  to  have  seen  that 
the  same  principle  held  true  in  the  assumption  of  the  simplicity  of  con- 
sciousness as  he  supposed  it  in  the  case  of  its  "  intensive  quantity." 
That  is  to  say,  if  the  "intensive  quantity"  of  consciousness  would 
prove  that  the  subject  also  was  an"  intensive  quantity,"  the  simplicity  of 
consciousness  would  prove  the  simplicity  of  the  subject,  and  Kant  ad- 
mitted that  consciousness  was  simple.  The  contraverse  of  this  will  also 
be  true.  And  again  if  the  simplicity  of  consciousness  is  compatible  with 
the  complexity  of  its  subject,  as  Kant  maintains,  the  invanishable  nature 
of  the  "  soul  "  is  quite  compatible  with  the  vanishable  character  of  con- 
sciousness, as  we  can  prove  this  by  the  "empirical  phenomena  "  of 
sleep  without  any  reference  to  the  nature  of  the  subject,  whether 
material  or  spiritual,  simple  or  complex.  Here  the  subject  persists 
after  consciousness  vanishes.  But  there  is  the  possibility  of  its  recur- 
rence, which  would  not  occur  if  the  subject  dissolved,  and  hence  the 
problem  is  first  to  ascertain  the  philosophic  conception  which  will 
offer  the  materialist  an  ad  hominem  alternative  to  his  conclusion. 
This  is  supplied  in  the  conception  of  the  soul  as  simple.  The  evi- 
dence of  this  simplicity  as  a  fact  may  be  imperfect  or  worthless,  as  it 
is  certainly  not  supplied  by  the  introspective  testimony  of  consciousness. 


SPIRITUALISM.  499 

But  it  is  no  attack  upon  the  position  of  Mendelssohn  to  resort  to  the 
**  intensive  quantity  "  of  consciousness,  as  this  is  simply  running  away 
from  the  issue. 

A  further  point  in  Kant's  argument  is  in  contradiction  with  his  doc- 
trine in  physics  which  assumed  the  persistence  of  substance,  which  he 
affirms  in  the  Kritik.  He  actually  defined  "  substance  "  as  the  per- 
manent in  change.  Now  if  the  "  soul "  can  possibly  vanish  gradually 
after  assuming  that  it  is  a  substance,  it  is  possible  for  any  other  sub- 
stance to  vanish  in  the  same  way.  He  could  apply  his  idea  of  elan- 
guescence  to  the  "soul"  only  on  the  assumption  that  it  was  not  a 
"  substance,"  but  a  '»  phenomenon,"  and  thus  by  begging  the  question 
with  his  opponents  who  held  that  the  subject  was  a  spiritual  substance 
and  consciousness  its  function.  Kant  was  perfectly  familiar  with  the 
doctrine  that  the  "soul"  was  a  substance  and  ought  to  have  known 
that  this  idea  was  so  prevalent  in  his  time  (actually  recognized  in  the 
Kritik}  that  it  was  an  evasion  of  the  issue  to  thus  talk  about 
elanguescence. 

But  after  arguing  against  Mendelssohn's  spiritualism,  Kant  turns 
around  to  disprove  the  materialistic  theory  by  the  following  argument. 
He  asserts  that  "  nothing  real  in  space  is  simple,"  and  then  assumes 
that  consciousness  is  simple,  and  while  looking  at  matter  as  complex 
he  denies  the  possibility  of  explaining  consciousness  by  this  matter  on 
the  ground  that  it  is  simple  and  cannot  have  a  complex  subject,  after 
having  said  that  the  simplicity  of  consciousness  was  compatible  with  a 
complex  subject  as  an  argument  against  the  "  rationalistic  psychology  "  ! 
Or  to  put  his  argument  in  another  way,  which  he  does.  All  the  real 
in  space  is  complex,  and  constitutes  "  matter."  Points  which  are  the 
only  simple  data  in  space  are  no  part  of  it.  Consequently  materialism 
cannot  explain  consciousness.  One  wonders  what  conception  of  logic 
Kant  had  to  see  any  rational  "  therefore  "  in  this  connection,  especially 
that  he  had  just  said  that  the  intuited  simplicity  of  consciousness  did 
not  imply  simplicity  of  subject.  Of  course  it  might  not  imply  its  com- 
plexity, but  his  position  did  imply  the  consistency  of  the  fact  with 
either  simplicity  or  complexity.  Consequently  he  could  not  legiti- 
mately affirm  the  "impossibility  of  explaining"  consciousness  by 
materialism  ;  for  his  very  argument  previously  implied  that  we  could. 
Of  course,  what  Kant  had  in  mind  was  a  lot  of  unwarranted  assump- 
tions borrowed  from  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz,  some  of  which  he 
apparently  accepts  and  some  of  which  he  apparently  rejects.  Thus  in 
making  "  matter"  complex  and  the  real  in  space  he  abandons  the  con- 
ception of  Leibnitz  who  accepted  a  supersensible  "matter"  and  did 


500  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  limit  his  conception  of  it  to  sense.  Then  in  supposing  conscious- 
ness to  be  spaceless  because  it  was  simple  he  made  a  perfectly  absurd 
and  unwarranted  assumption  for  which  there  is  no  ground  but  his 
imagination.  But  granted  that  it  was  well  supported,  the  contention 
that  we  could  not  intuit  the  simplicity  of  the  subject  while  we  could 
that  of  consciousness  left  this  simplicity  of  consciousness  compatible 
with  the  complexity  of  the  subject,  and  materialism  stands  sustained 
instead  of  refuted.  To  repeat  a  point,  the  whole  trouble  with  Kant 
lay  in  his  playing  fast  and  loose  with  conceptions  that  were  partly 
Leibnitzian  and  partly  non-Leibnitzian.  The  force  of  his  remark 
about  the  "  real  in  space"  as  complex  comes  from  the  assumption  of 
Leibnitz  that  the  simple  "  real  "  is  spaceless  or  a  point,  and  by  natural 
inference  that  the  "phenomenal"  is  extended  and  divisible,  the 
unextended  being  indivisible.  Now  after  having  thus  made  conscious- 
ness spaceless  how  can  he  speak  of  it  as  gradually  vanishing?  More- 
over, when  he  talks  of  '■'  points  "  as  not  constituting  space,  while  this 
is  unquestionably  true,  he  goes  on  to  argue  for  the  impossibility  of  con- 
sciousness being  a  function  of  the  extended  because  it  is  unextended, 
assuming  that  the  complex  cannot  have  a  simple  function  after  having 
previously  argued  that  it  was  possible  !  Leibnitz's  very  conception  of 
"matter"  was  that  of  the  unextended,  space  enveloping  it  but  not 
being  a  property  of  it.  Hence  Kant  simply  begs  the  question  as  to  the 
nature  of  "matter"  by  dogmatically  making  it  complex  when  the 
whole  history  of  materialism  shows  that  it  was  regarded  as  simple  in 
its  ultimate  nature.  But  even  this  change  of  meaning  for  "  matter" 
to  the  spatially  and  sensibly  real  does  not  help  his  case  unless  he  grants 
that  the  nature  of  the  function  or  "  phenomenon  "  determines  the  nature 
of  the  subject,  in  which  case  Kant  would  escape  materialism,  but  would 
at  the  same  time  be  absolutely  forced  to  regard  spiritualism  as  proved, 
since  the  admitted  simplicity  of  consciousness  would  carry  with  it  the 
simplicity  of  the  subject,  and  hence  the  conclusion  of  Mendelssohn. 

Kant  assumes  that  mathematical  and  physical  divisibility  are  the 
same  or  mutually  implicative.  This  can  be  denied.  Infinite  mathe- 
matical divisibility  does  not  imply  any  physical  divisibility  whatever. 
Matter  might  occupy  all  the  space  you  please  and  be  absolutely  indi- 
visible physically  without  its  annihilation.  Kant  ought  to  have  seen 
this  with  his  doctrine  of  space  which  was  not  only  subjective  but  so 
distinct  from  the  nature  of  matter  that  you  could  not  argue  from  one 
to  the  other.  Besides  having  said  that  space  is  not  constituted  by 
"  points  "  how  could  he  even  make  space  divisible  in  any  way  ever 
to  reach  "  points"  at  all.     The  materialist's  "  divisibility"  was  not 


SPIRITUALISM.  50I 

concerned  with  this  mathematical  problem  and  was  not  even  condi- 
tioned by  the  elementary  nature  of  the  constituents  of  its  compounds. 
What  it  meant  by  divisibility  was  resolution  into  parts  in  a  manner 
which  destroyed  certain  functions  in  the  process.  Kant  misses  this 
point  in  the  hairsplitting  arguments  upon  which  he  relies  while  char- 
acterizing them  by  this  very  defect. 

But  the  most  interesting  fact  is  that  Kant  insists  that  there  are 
arguments  for  the  existence  and  continuance  of  the  soul  that  are  valid. 
These,  however,  are  said  to  be  the  products  of  the  "  practical  reason," 
whose  meaning  no  man  has  ever  yet  discovered  clearly,  unless  it  is 
identical  with  the  "intuition"  of  "common  sense"  which  it  is  the 
delight  of  the  idealists  and  Kantians  to  despise.  They  are  as  full  of 
paralogisms  as  the  arguments  of  the  dogmatists,  and  have  no  value 
unless  reducible  to  logical  form.  Kant  was  simply  throwing  a  sop  to 
Cerberus  in  them,  and  since  his  time  every  one  who  has  felt  the  force 
of  his  criticism  of  "  rationalism  "  has  also  felt  the  fatal  weakness  of  the 
practical  arguments,  because  no  one  takes  his  "  practical"  arguments 
seriously  when  accepting  the  cogency  of  the  others  in  the '  negative 
result.  Every  intelligent  man  sees  their  worthlessness  as  "  proof  "  and 
for  the  same  reasons  that  he  assumes  the  failure  of  dogmatism.  Phi- 
losophers are  rather  ashamed  to  use  such  arguments.  I  grant  that  we 
cannot  see  how  life  and  its  ideals  and  morality  can  be  completely 
rational  without  survival  after  death.  But  then  things  may  not  be  com- 
pletely rational  at  all.  Proof  of  survival  may  be  the  condition  of  show- 
ing that  things  are  rational  in  the  direction  of  that  ideal  whose  integ- 
rity is  interested  in  the  issue,  and  if  that  is  not  proved  or  provable,  we 
certainly  do  not  have  the  evidence  of  any  rationality  apparent  in  the 
course  of  things  that  extends  beyond  the  "  phenomenal"  existence  of 
the  present.  The  whole  movement  in  thought  since  Kant  has  been  in 
this  direction,  and  refuses  to  measure  the  value  and  meaning  of  the 
present  by  the  future,  even  though  it  finds  in  the  persistence  and  unity 
of  consciousness  at  present  a  fact  which  materialism  has  trouble  in  ex- 
plaining. In  this  development  philosophy  has  been  more  consistent 
than  Kant.  I  do  not  deny  that  Kant  was  right  in  his  estimate  of  the 
relation  between  the  moral  law  and  a  future  existence,  as  I  think  the 
argument  certainly  appeals  to  men  who  have  felt  the  springs  of  that 
law  and  who  yet  had  no  quarrel  with  nature  for  apparent  injustice. 
But  I  must  contend  that  the  argument  is  worthless  unless  it  is  recon- 
cilable with  the  metaphysical  questions  which  insist  upon  haunting 
our  reflections  and  scientific  theories  of  present  facts.  It  is  the  absurd 
dualism  between  the  "theoretical"  and  the  "practical"  reason  that 


502  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

creates  offence.  There  is  no  more  rational  ground  for  following 
"  practical"  reason  than  there  is  for  accepting  the  conclusions  of  the 
"  theoretical."  Our  duty  is  to  purge  "  rationalism  "  of  its  real  or  sup- 
posed fallacies,  not  to  repudiate  the  process,  especially  when  we  can- 
not show  its  weakness  without  accepting  the  logical  processes  which  it 
was  the  real  or  apparent  object  of  Kant  to  discredit.  This  appeal 
to  the  "practical"  reason  only  took  the  matter  of  belief  out  of  the 
hands  of  sane  and  reflective  thinking  and  simply  handed  it  over  to  the 
caprices  of  the  individual  emotions  where  the  "  will "  to  disbelieve 
would  be  as  valid  as  the  "  will  to  believe."  What  Kant  should  have 
recognized  was  the  fact  that  criticism  must  be  applicable  to  all  argu- 
ments or  none  and  that  the  methods  of  "  speculative"  reason  are  as 
legitimate  as  those  of  the  "  practical  "  and  that  error  arises  in  the  failure 
to  investigate  fallacies  and  not  in  the  use  of  reason  as  an  instrument. 

7.  There  is  a  sceptical  difficulty  with  materialism  which  I  have 
reserved  for  consideration  in  this  connection,  and  which  the  materialist 
seems  never  to  have  suspected,  and  for  which  he  has  never  provided 
any  adequate  protection  of  himself,  though  in  many  instances  he  has 
admitted  the  facts  which  suggest  a  difficulty  in  his  system.  It  is  an 
objection  which  characterizes  the  idealist's  point  of  view,  and  comes 
from  conclusions  established  or  supposed  to  have  been  established  by 
epistemology.  It  is  the  general  antithesis  between  the  subjective  and 
objective.  Idealism  in  almost  every  form  has  carried  this  distinction 
to  the  whole  field  of  reality,  insisting  that  we  do  not  know  its  "  nature,"' 
but  only  its  "  appearance,"  or  the  way  in  which  we  are  affected  by  it. 
Occasionally  the  idealist  awakens  to  the  fact  that  this  antithesis  dis- 
solves itself  into  unity,  if  I  may  use  that  expression,  by  the  very  exclu- 
sion from  "  knowledge"  of  that  which  is  said  to  determine  its  limits 
and  which  becomes  nothing  in  the  problem,  leaving  thought  where  it 
was  before,  and  reinstating  objective  reality  in  new  terms.  But  usually 
the  temptation  is  to  keep  up  a  passionate  warfare  against  materialism  y 
partly  as  an  excuse  for  existence,  partly  as  a  blind  refuge  for  religion, 
and  mainly  as  an  escape  from  the  accusation  of  having  common  sense. 
Nevertheless,  whatever  the  embarrassments  it  suffers  in  the  struggle 
between  doubt  and  belief,  it  enjoys  the  protection  of  facts  which  the 
materialist  does  not  always  face  as  fearlessly  as  he  should.  Idealism 
has  abstracted  sensible  properties  from  the  "  nature  "  of  things  and 
limited  our  right  to  claim  "  knowledge  "  for  anything  but  this  sensible 
"experience,"  insisting  that -wmCn  transcends  this  fact  cannot  be 
called  by  the  same  name  as  the  sensible  reality,  if  nameable  at  all. 
When  the  idealist  discovered  the  subjectivity  of  certain  significant  facts 


•  SPIRITUALISM.  503 

he  at  once  set  about  examining  its  consequences.  His  opponent  never 
did  so.  The  materialist  has  not  been  careful  of  the  conceptions  which 
he  used  in  the  construction  of  his  theory.  When  certain  facts  have 
pressed  upon  him  the  relativity  and  phenomenality  of  his  "  experience" 
he  has  accepted  this  view  without  asking  any  questions  about  the 
remainder  of  the  facts  in  the  same  field.  Thus  Epicurus  admitted  the 
subjectivity  of  color  perception,  meaning  that  color,  as  we  perceive  it, 
did  not  correctly  represent  the  qualitative  nature  of  the  object  that 
acted  on  the  organism,  but  was  the  effect  of  the  subject  in  reaction. 
All  this  was  familiar  to  Plato  and  the  Sophists,  but  it  did  not  occur  to 
the  materialists  that  the  same  treatment  might  be  accorded  to  the 
"perception"  of  motion.  After  discovering  that  sensible  qualities 
were  "  phenomenal"  or  relative  to  the  subject,  they  still  went  on  with 
the  assumption  that  motion  was  not  "  phenomenal,"  and  materialists 
ever  since  have  failed  to  see  that  their  conception  of  motion  was 
chargeable  with  being  subjective  quite  as  much  as  color  or  sound,  and 
that,  if  the  abstraction  of  such  facts  from  the  "  nature"  of  objective 
reality  necessitates  the  description  of  that  reality  in  terms  of  what  had 
been  supposed  before,  then  the  materialistic  point  of  view  has  to 
surrender  to  the  immaterialistic.  This  is  to  say,  that  the  antithesis 
between  the  subjective  and  objective,  if  granted  at  all,  must  be  extended 
to  the  whole  field  of  sensory  determinations,  and  if  the  materialistic 
view  is  to  be  conceived  as  convertible  with  sensible  conceptions  of 
reality,  the  supersensible,  if  distinguishable  from  it,  must  be  treated 
as  immaterialistic.  This,  of  course,  is  precisely  the  contention  of 
idealism  which  insists,  implicitly  or  explicitly,  that  there  is  no  identity 
between  the  subjective  and  the  objective  as  apparent,  no  transmission 
or  influxus  physicus  of  the  external  into  the  internal,  and  hence  ex- 
cludes the  right  to  describe  them  in  terms  implying  their  identity. 
The  materialist  identifies  them  and  may  consistently  identify  them, 
provided  that  he  constructs  a  theory  of  the  relation  between  the  sub- 
jective and  objective  that  either  makes  that  identity  intelligible  or 
qualifies  the  antithesis  by  limitations  which  will  permit  the  applica- 
tion of  some  of  our  terms  and  conceptions  to  a  reality  which  is  not 
sensible.  The  materialist  makes  this  application  of  concepts  to  the 
supersensible,  but  he  forgets  that,  in  doing  so,  he  often  has  to  admit  the 
same  difference  between  the  supersensible  and  the  sensible  which  the 
idealist  insists  upon  as  a  ground  for  applying  terms  implying  an  antith- 
esis. That  is  to  say,  the  materialist  is  forced  to  accept  the  antithesis 
between  the  sensible  and  the  supersensible,  the  difference  between  the 
abstract  reality  accepted   as  the  ground  of   events  and   the  concrete 


504  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

"phenomenon"  which  is  regarded  as  the  symbol  of  its  presence  and 
ought  to  see,  when  he  accepts  the  fact,  that  the  opposition  between 
his  position  and  that  of  the  idealist  is  not  what  it  was  supposed  to 
be,  and  that  a  little  critical  analysis  of  his  concept  of  motion  might 
prove  that  he  has  "  dematerialized  "  this  conception  and  that  it  no 
longer  represents  the  sensible  fact  which  he  assumes  in  his  argu- 
ment and  theories.  He  starts  with  the  sensible  fact  called  "  motion," 
which  he  defines  as  a  change  in  place,  and  then  turns  up  at  the  end 
with  the  same  term  applied  to  real  or  alleged  facts,  such  as  the 
undulations  of  heat,  light  and  electricity,  which  can  have  no  sen- 
sible meaning  whatever  and  which  are  quite  as  supersensible  as  the 
atoms  and  molecules  which  they  are  especially  careful  to  describe  as 
excluding  all  sensible  verification  and  "  perception."  The  supersen- 
sible nature  of  their  reality,  whether  of  substance  and  its  activities, 
whether  of  matter  or  motion,  especially  in  the  dynamic  theory  of 
matter,  is  concealed  by  the  fact  that  its  concepts  are  never  exposed  to 
the  criticism  and  analysis  which  are  supposed  to  characterize  the  func- 
tions of  philosophy  and  not  of  science,  so  that  all  sorts  of  contradic- 
tions are  held  together  in  scientific  systems,  partly  because  science  is 
not  made  adequately  responsible  for  consistency  in  the  crude  meta- 
physics assumed  at  its  basis  and  partly  because  idealism  has  been  too 
haughty  to  discuss  the  problems  of  philosophy  in  any  terms  but  those 
which  could  not  be  understood  by  science  and  that  would  not  offend 
any  more  than  they  would  enlighten  religion.  But  the  moment  that 
materialistic  science  required  to  give  an  explanation  of  a  fact  in  terms 
of  the  known,  it  seized  upon  the  concept  of  "  motion,"  generalized  it, 
thus  making  it  abstract,  and  then  described  it  as  representing  the 
"nature"  of  supersensible  conditions,  where  almost  anything  can  be 
said  with  impunity,  because  it  can  neither  be  verified  nor  disproved, 
unless  the  antithesis  with  which  it  starts  is  modified.  The  materialist 
has  unconsciously  performed  the  same  abstraction  as  the  idealist  and 
landed  in  precisely  the  same  position,  the  only  difference  being  that 
he  clings  for  dear  life  to  a  terminology  associated  with  sensory  "  ex- 
perience," while  the  idealist  adopts  the  language  of  intellectualism  and 
evades  the  suspicion  of  agreement  with  materialism  only  because  of  his 
language  which  still  carries  with  it  the  implications  of  the  dualism 
which  he  strenuously  denies. 

I  must  remind  the  reader,  however,  that  the  difficulty  with  ma- 
terialism which  I  have  just  discussed  is  not  fatal  to  all  forms  of  the 
theory.  I  have  only  been  showing  that,  when  its  position  with  regard 
to  fundamental  conceptions  has  been  critically  examined,  it  is  not  found 


SPIRITUALISM.  505 

to  be  different  from  idealism  which  so  rigorously  opposes  it.  The  ma- 
terialism which  cannot  be  so  easily  attacked  is  that  which  frankly  uses 
the  term  "  matter"  to  denote  supersensible  reality,  and  explains  "  phe- 
nomena "  as  functional  resultants  of  composition,  while  it  does  not  care 
what  we  choose  to  call  this  reality.  I  have  already  shown  that  it 
would  not  alter  the  problem  of  the  nature  and  limits  of  consciousness 
in  the  slightest,  if  we  called  this  supersensible  reality  "spirits"  and 
yet  treated  all  qualities  as  functional  resultants  of  their  composition. 
The  problem  is  not  effected  by  the  name  that  we  shall  give  to  ultimate 
reality,  but  by  the  relation  of  "  phenomena  "  to  it,  whatever  its  name. 
Hence  materialism  in  all  its  real  import  will  not  be  refuted  by  dialec- 
tical criticism  of  its  conception  of  "  motion,"  or  of  its  sensible  ter- 
minology, but  only  by  showing  that  consciousness  is  not  a  functional 
consequence  of  composition.  But  nevertheless,  it  is  a  step  in  the  direc- 
tion of  either  harmony  or  of  its  refutation,  if  we  show  that  it  accepts 
an  antithesis  between  the  subjective  or  objective  in  its  estimation  of  the 
sensible  world  and  does  not  carry  out  this  antithesis  consistently.  If 
we  can  show  that  there  is  much  the  same  difference,  perhaps  abso- 
lutely the  same  difference,  between  its  sensible  "  matter"  and  its  super- 
sensible "  matter"  that  the  idealist,  on  the  one -hand,  supposes  between 
"  appearance"  and  "  reality,"  and  that  the  spiritualist,  on  the  other, 
supposes  between  "  matter"  and  "spirit,"  we  shall  do  much  to  open 
the  way,  not  only  to  conciliation,  but  also  to  some  rational  reconstruc- 
tion of  philosophy  consistently  with  the  achievements  of  science.  The 
materialist's  advantage  lies  in  his  use  of  terms  which  he  does  not  criti- 
cise and  his  appeal  to  the  concrete  and  sensible,  while  he  neglects  to 
notice  or  to  point  out  that  his  "  real "  world  of  existence,  causal 
agency,  etc.,  is  not  sensible  at  all,  but  something  quite  as  supersensible 
as  the  "  reality"  of  his  opponents,  though  he  goes  on  making  affirma- 
tions that  are  intelligible  only  on  the  assumption  that  he  is  dealing 
with  a  sensible  world,  whose  antithesis  with  the  supersensible  is  con- 
cealed by  an  identity  of  terms  and  yet  resorted  to  whenever  he  gets 
into  trouble  with  any  conscious  conception  of  their  identity.  But  if  in 
reality  there  is  an  antithesis  between  the  sensible  facts  which  he  is  ex- 
plaining and  the  reality  supposed  to  explain  them  ;  if,  for  instance,  to 
be  concrete,  there  is  an  antithesis  or  difference  in  kind  between  sen- 
sible motion  and  the  "  motion"  to  which  the  materialist  appeals  for 
explanation  of  facts  and  which  is  purely  supersensible,  the  distinction 
here  involved  between  the  two  facts,  the  visible  and  invisible,  the 
tangible  and  intangible,  the  audible  and  inaudible,  etc.,  may  possibly 
be  treated  as  implying  that  we  have  no  more  right  to  describe  both  of 


506  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

them  in  terms  of  "  motion"  than  we  have  to  apply  the  term  color  with 
an  identical  import  to  the  sensation  and  to  the  vibrations  supposed  to 
instigate  it.  Supersensible  "  motion "  is  therefore  not  "motion"  at 
all,  when  measured  in  terms  of  the  sensible  fact,  or  if  we  so  denomi- 
nate it,  we  cannot  apply  the  term  to  the  sensible  fact,  unless  we  can 
qualify  the  antithesis  with  which  we  start.  In  either  case  we  have 
transcended  the  sensible  "  phenomenon"  in  a  way  that  identifies  the 
materialist's  conception  of  the  case  with  that  of  his  opponents.  The 
ultimate  nature  of  phenomenal  "reality"  is  not  "motion"  as  we 
know  it  sensibly,  even  though  it  may  prove  to  have  elements  of  simi- 
larity in  it  with  what  we  "  know,"  so  that  the  materialist  ought  not  to 
have  any  trouble  in  supposing  the  possibility  that  it  is  consciousness. 
The  materialist  is  in  a  dilemma  here.  If  motion  is  a  purely  sensible 
determination,  consciousness  and  motion  are  identical  and  "  reality"  is 
in  antithesis  to  both.  If  it  is  supersensible,  there  is  no  way  to  exclude 
the  possibility  that  it  is  consciousness,  and  he  has  to  conceive  it  pre- 
cisely as  the  idealist  and  spiritualist  wish  to  conceive  it,  namely,  as  not 
motional  in  the  sensible  implications  of  the  term.  On  the  one  hand, 
therefore,  this  possibility  of  identity  between  the  two  conceptions 
would  indicate  that  we  might  call  consciousness  a  mode  of  motion, 
provided  that  we  kept  clear  the  fact  that  we  conceived  it  as  super- 
sensible and  not  a  sensible  "  phenomenon,"  and  on  the  other,  the 
antithesis,  if  granted,  puts  consciousness  beyond  the  materialist's  expla- 
nation. The  only  difficulty  that  we  should  have  to  meet  in  the  identi- 
fication of  the  supersensible  with  motion  would  be  that  of  getting  those 
who  have  not  recognized  this  supersensible  application  of  the  term  to 
eliminate  the  associations  and  implications  of  the  term  in  sensible 
"  experience."  But  apart  from  this  purely  verbal  difficulty  the  ma- 
terialist is  in  fact  too  nearly  in  agreement  with  his  opponents  to  justify 
the  animosities  of  his  position. 

8.  There  is  another  fact  which  results  in  a  complete  annihilation  of 
the  old  materialistic  theory  and  leaves  nothing  behind  it  but  the  name. 
It  is  the  vortex-atom  theory,  and  possibly  also  the  new  theory  that  the 
previously  assumed  atom  is  not  simple  at  all,  but  a  very  highly  complex 
thing,  a  compound  of  "  ions,"  "  electrons,"  etc.,  whatever  these  mys- 
terious entities  are.  But  the  vortex-atom  theory  of  matter  was  and  is 
an  attempt  to  reduce  matter  to  a  differentiated  form  of  ether.  The  sup- 
position of  the  existence  of  ether  has  been  demanded  on  the  ground 
that  various  "  phenomena"  like  heat,  light,  magnetism  and  electricity 
require  some  such  reality  distinct  from  the  solid  universe  for  the  propa- 
gation of  their  vibrations.     This  ether  has  been  described  in  terms  that 


SPIRITUALISM.  507 

are  completely  the  negative  of  matter.  It  has  not  a  single  property  by 
which  we  define  material  existence,  except  extension,  and  this  is  not 
properly  a  property  of  matter.  It  is  universally  distributed  through 
space,  not  subject  to  the  law  of  gravitation,  perfectly  penetrable,  super- 
sensible in  all  its  conditions,  and  so  without  a  single  indication  of 
identity  even  with  supersensible  matter.  It  can  be  described  only  in 
negative  terms.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  distinctly  affirmed  that  this  reality 
was  different  from  matter.  Now  we  are  asked  to  regard  "  matter"  as 
constituted  by  vortex-atoms  of  this  ether,  units  of  that  which  is  not 
"  matter"  at  all !  At  other  times  the  materialist  contradicts  this  posi- 
tion by  defining  ether  as  a  form  of  matter,  in  which  the  generic  con- 
ception is  not  ether,  while  in  the  former  case  this  conception  is  ether. 
But  in  any  case  the  term  "  matter"  has  to  be  so  generalized  and  the 
abstraction  of  such  qualities  as  we  know  in  matter  carried  so  far  that 
the  conception  has  no  controversial  capacity  in  the  discussion  of  prob- 
lems like  the  nature  and  destiny  of  mind.  Such  a  conception  of 
"matter"  can  oppose  neither  idealism  nor  spiritualism.  We  find  in 
this  conception  an  actual  return  to  the  doctrine  that  "  matter"  is  a  cre- 
ated and  "  phenomenal  "  thing,  even  in  its  atomic  form,  and  something 
transcending  its  nature  is  assumed  at  the  background  of  the  universe, 
so  that  there  is  nothing  left  of  the  old  materialism  but  the  name,  while 
disputants  on  both  sides  imitate  the  "  heroes  of  Valhalla  who  are  for- 
ever hewing  down  shadows  that  only  spring  up  again  to  renew  their 
ceaseless  and  bloodless  conflict." 

The  elasticity  of  materialism,  in  the  use  of  language  and  in  illus- 
tration from  fact,  is  so  great  that  no  man  without  the  sense  of  humor 
will  easily  discover  the  weak  points  in  its  armor.  Fortunately  for  it 
the  progress  of  knowledge  in  refining  the  conception  of  matter  has 
associated  with  it  such  a  wonderful  range  of  capacity  and  function  for 
producing  delicate  effects  rivaling  the  mysteries  of  mind,  that  it  may 
easily  retain  the  apparent  consistency  of  its  philosophy  with  every 
change  of  its  mask.  But  if  the  antagonistic  theory  could  restrain  the 
traditional  habit  of  contradiction  and  seize  the  opportunities  offered  by 
the  appropriation  of  the  materialist's  own  conceptions,  it  might  bring 
the  enemy  in  a  captive  on  its  own  terms,  even  if  its  only  weapon  is 
faith,  since  the  elastic  possibilities  of  the  material  world  transcend  all 
that  theology  could  ever  have  concretely  imagined  in  the  world  of 
spirit.  But  it  is  extremely  unfortunate  that  the  enmity  is  so  hered- 
itary, that  it  conceals  the  actual  commerce  of  supersensible  reality 
which  determines  the  legitimate  province  of  both  world  views.  I 
cannot,  however,  enter  into  any  positive  defense  of  the  spiritualistic 


50S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

theory,  as  there  can  be  only  one  conclusive  proof  of  it  in  the  face  of  the 
materialistic  elasticity  indicated  and  the  simple  nature  of  the  evidential 
problem,  and  this  is  the  proof  of  actual  survival  after  death.  That  is 
a  scientific,  and  not  what  is  usually  called  a  philosophic  problem. 
Philosophy  will  have  to  learn  humility  and  to  admit  its  limitations, 
and  that  its  assurances  are  bounded  by  the  achievements  of  the  experi- 
mental sciences.  All  that  a  work  of  this  kind  can  effect  is  a  critic  of 
materialistic  dogmatism,  with  an  indication  of  the  direction  which  in- 
vestigation and  reflection  must  take  in  the  hope  of  a  solution  of  the 
question  and  the  realization  of  its  ideals. 

Summary. 

I  may  briefly  summarize  the  facts  which  make  a  spiritual  view  of 
man's  consciousness  and  its  survival  possible.  The  facts  indicated  will 
not  prove  it,  but  they  will  show  that  tendency  of  physical  science  which 
unmistakably  indicates  a  conception  of  matter  quite  consistent  with 
the  ancient  notion  of  spirit  instead  of  excluding  it,  and  makes  it  merely 
a  question  of  the  kind  of  facts  in  our  possession  whether  we  have  not 
evidence  of  discarnate  existence.  Whether  we  have  any  such  evidence 
is  not  the  claim  in  this  work,  but  only  that  physical  science  not  only 
has  nothing  to  contradict  the  acquisition  of  such  evidence,  but  actually 
provides  a  condition  of  things  that  implies  its  possibility. 

i.  The  first  thing  to  remark  is  the  fact  that  the  whole  super- 
structure of  modern  physical  science  rests  upon  a  supersensible  world. 
This  was  even  true  of  ancient  Greek  thought  in  spite  of  its  opposition 
to  the  Christian  spiritual  system.  The  atomic  doctrine  represented  the 
elements  as  wholly  supersensible  and  its  advocates  called  it  matter 
simply  because  Greek  thought  was  based  upon  material  causation  or 
the  principle  of  identity  in  the  explanation  of  things.  In  so  far  as  the 
manner  of  conceiving  the  atoms  in  relation  to  sense  was  concerned  it 
might  as  well  have  called  its  elements  "  spirit "  as  to  have  called  them 
matter.  But  this  would  have  troubled  its  imagination  in  the  use  of  its 
favorite  maxim  of  causation.  Hence  the  supersensible  world  was 
called  matter  in  spite  of  its  non-sensory  character.  "  Spirit,"  there- 
fore, if  it  comprehended  any  facts  not  explicable  by  either  sensible  or 
supersensible  "  matter,"  had  to  describe  itself  as  "  immaterial,"  as  we 
find  was  actually  the  case  in  the  speculative  philosophy  of  Christianity. 
But  at  first  it  was  practically  identical  with  the  supersensible  of 
materialism,  as  is  apparent  in  the  Epicurean  doctrine  of  the  soul  and 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  "  spiritual"  body. 

2.   The  modern  conception  of  matter  is  still  more  a  departure  from 


SPIRITUALISM.  509 

the  ancient  theory  and  in  some  sense  also  a  departure  from  that  which 
was  held  for  several  previous  centuries.  The  doctrine  of  the  inde- 
structibility of  matter  was  a  return  to  the  ancient  view  that ' '  matter  " 
was  the  one  eternal  reality  and  all  else  was  its  phenomenon.  Matter 
took  the  place  of  God  in  the  Christian  scheme.  But  the  reduction  of 
matter  to  vortex  atoms  of  ether,  and  later  to  a  form  of  electrical  energy 
composed  of  "  electrons  "  and  "  ions  "  are  conceptions  that  assume  it 
to  be  evanescent  and  perishable,  or  at  least  creatable.  No  application 
of  the  term  "  matter"  to  these  ultimates  out  of  which  it  is  presumably 
created  or  evolved  can  be  made  without  abandoning  the  antithesis 
between  "matter"  and  "  spirit"  as  they  were  anciently  conceived,  or 
even  down  to  very  recent  times. 

3.  The  existence  of  ether  as  a  substance  or  reality  which  exhibits 
none  of  the  sensible  or  other  properties  of  matter,  save  extension,  is 
also  a  refinement  of  the  conceptions  of  metaphysics  that  either  assumes 
something  immaterial  or  extends  the  idea  of  "  matter  "  so  generally 
that  it  again  offers  no  important  opposition  to  that  of  "spirit"  as 
merely  the  "  immaterial."  Besides  the  fact  that  not  even  gravity  or 
weight  is  predicated  of  the  ether  is  one  that  justifies  objection  to  calling 
it  "  matter,"  unless  we  abandon  the  old  implications  of  antithesis  to 
"  spirit  "  as  once  understood. 

4.  The  supersensible  world  of  X-rays,  radioactive  energies,  Hert- 
zian waves,  and  perhaps  N-rays,  is  the  admission  of  a  vast  cosmos  of 
energies  that  do  not  exhibit  any  direct  evidence  of  their  existence,  but 
that  prove  this  by  their  effects  in  the  sensible  world.  The  establish- 
ment of  this  supersensible  world  simply  breaks  down  the  old  sensa- 
tional materialism  finally,  though  it  may  have  survived  the  catastrophe 
of  the  difficulties  previously  mentioned.  The  possibility  of  "spirit" 
in  any  sense  cannot  be  denied  after  the  admission  of  these  supersensible 
agencies,  because  they  extend  the  limits  of  the  material  so  far  beyond 
what  they  have  previously  been  supposed  that  the  immaterial  will  be 
but  a  question  of  the  word  employed  to  describe  the  real  nature  of 
things. 

5.  The  supposed  inconvertibility  of  physical  and  mental  phe- 
nomena, though  consistent  with  the  materialistic  theory  in  one  con- 
ception of  causality,  namely,  that  of  efficient  causality,  is  not  con- 
sistent with  that  of  material  causality,  and  if  materialism  were  con- 
vertible with  this  latter  view  it  would  be  wholly  incompatible  with  the 
view  that  consciousness  is  a  functional  epiphenomenon.  In  any  case 
this  assumed  inconvertibility  of  the  physical  and  mental  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  suppose  another  subject  for  the  mental  than  the  physical  or- 


510  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ganism,  and  would  make  it  necessary  were  we  to  deny  an  efficient 
causal  nexus  between  the  two  series. 

6.  If  such  a  thing  as  the  soul  actually  exists  either  as  a  "  fine  ma- 
terial "  organism,  after  the  conception  of  the  Epicureans,  or  as  an 
ethereal  organism,  or  as  the  theosophists'  "astral  body,"  we  might 
well  use  the  principle  involved  in  the  indestructibility  of  matter  to 
suggest  the  survival  of  the  soul  after  death.  The  only  question  that 
would  remain  is  whether  its  identity,  that  is,  personal  identity,  also 
survived.  It  is  assumed  in  the  indestructibility  of  matter  that  it  under- 
goes various  transformations  in  its  changes  and  multiform  compo- 
sitions and  syntheses.  Two  facts,  however,  seem  to  show  that  matter 
retains  its  identity  in  all  its  metamorphoses  and  compositions.  The 
first  is  that  it  never  loses  any  weight  or  gravity  in  any  of  its  changes  of 
form.  Whatever  change  of  other  properties  or  function  occurs  this 
one  property  remains  unaltered,  and  if  it  did  not  remain  so,  there 
would  be  no  evidence  of  indestructibility.  This  retention  of  its  abso- 
lute identity  in  one  respect  or  in  one  essential  characteristic  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  the  proof  of  indestructibility  and  is  the  fact  that 
constitutes  its  identity  in  change.  On  this  assumption  and  analogy 
the  soul  might  retain  its  function  of  consciousness  without  being  af- 
fected by  the  change  called  death.  There  is  no  proof  of  it  in  the  mere 
fact  of  indestructibility,  especially  that  many  properties  and  functions 
seem  to  be  destroyed  by  dissolution  of  compounds,  and  it  must  be  a 
question  of  evidence  to  determine  whether  any  particular  function  is 
evanescent.  The  second  fact  is  that  the  elements  retain  their  identity, 
according  to  physical  scientists,  throughout  all  their  changes  and  are 
apparently  modified  only  in  combination.  But  even  here  isomorphism 
and  the  similar  effects  of  an  element  in  various  compounds  suggests 
some  characteristic  of  identity  in  combinations.  And  further  the  im- 
portant fact  that,  in  the  law  of  Mendelejeff  the  elements  are  classified 
according  to  relations  of  specific  gravity  and  other  associated  proper- 
ties, which  suggest  an  origin  from  some  ultimate  single  substance,  is 
one  that  indicates  an  identity  of  some  kind  at  the  basis  of  all  phe- 
nomenal action.  The  existence  and  survival  of  a  soul  would  thus 
carry  the  presumption  of  possible  identity  in  its  migration  from  the 
organism.  All  that  would  be  wanting  to  prove  it  would  be  evidence 
of  this  identity  in  fact.  Even  in  allotropism  and  isomerism  some  ele- 
ments of  identity  remain,  so  that  everywhere  that  indestructibility  ex- 
hibits itself  there  is  the  possibility  of  some  functional  identity  remain- 
ing independent  of  change  and  accident. 

7.  The  history  of  the  localization  of  brain  functions  rather  suggests 


SPIRITUALISM.  5  I  I 

the  existence  of  an  agency  other  than  the  brain  to  account  for  the  phe- 
nomena of  consciousness.  Some  of  the  Greeks  naively  believed  that 
the  soul  was  situated  in  the  stomach,  others  in  the  heart.  But  later 
men  came  to  believe  that  it  was  situated  in  the  brain.  The  older  view 
conceived  its  particular  seat  as  its  organ.  That  is,  the  stomach  or 
heart  was  supposed  to  be  the  instrument  by  which  it  revealed  its  ex- 
istence, and  so  assumed  that  the  soul  was  not  a  function  of  that  particu- 
lar center.  But  the  moment  that  modern  physiology  located  the  soul 
in  the  brain  and  made  other  centers  dependent  upon  it,  the  consequence 
was  that,  whatever  functions  were  exercised  by  other  centers,  they  were 
initiated  from  without.  The  stomach  and  heart,  in  this  new  view,  do 
not  originate  their  functional  activities,  but  derive  their  impulses  from 
the  brain  centers.  This  is  in  accordance  with  the  general  doctrine  of 
inertia.  But  it  was  still  assumed  that  the  brain  could  originate  func- 
tional action  as  a  center  wherever  the  theory  of  materialism  existed 
and  which  supposed  that  all  consciousness  was  a  function  of  the  brain 
and  not  a  function  of  some  other  agent  associated  with  the  brain.  This 
general  conception  of  brain  function  was  worked  out  in  detail  first  by 
phrenology  and  later  in  a  different  way  by  the  physiology  of  brain 
functions  definitely  and  specifically  localized,  but  in  a  manner  nullify- 
ing the  opinions  of  phrenology.  Later,  however,  this  doctrine  of 
localization  has  been  so  modified  as  to  indicate  that  the  brain  as  a 
whole  functions  in  consciousness.  But  this  view  is  followed  by  a  later 
doctrine  that  the  brain  and  its  centers  are  merely  points  through  which 
energy  flows  in  the  manifestation  of  consciousness.  This  is  an  aban- 
donment of  the  idea  that  the  brain  originates  the  functional  activities 
manifested  in  consciousness,  and  extends  the  doctrine  of  inertia  still 
farther,  so  that  consciousness,  as  a  function,  seems  to  arise  from  with- 
out the  brain  and  simply  manifests  its  existence  by  its  effects  in  the 
physical  organism  or  the  physical  universe.  This  assumes  that,  in  all 
organisms,  action  is  initiated  from  without,  and  so  implies  the  exist- 
ence of  an  agent  foreign  to  the  body.  All  that  has  to  be  done  after 
this  is  to  apply  the  doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  or  energy 
to  maintain  the  possibility  that  this  agent  can  exist  independently  of 
the  organism  and  after  its  dissolution.  We  should  only  have  to  seek 
evidence  of  personal  identity  to  indicate  that  it  was  a  fact  and  not 
merely  a  possibility.  I  do  not  say  that  the  latest  theory  of  brain  func- 
tions is  correct.  It  may  not  be  so.  I  only  indicate  that  the  physiolo- 
gist who  adopts  it  has  to  face  a  conclusion  which  was  not  consistent 
with  the  earlier  conceptions  of  his  science. 

8.  That  the  whole  question  turns  upon  the  evidence  for  the  con- 


512  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tinuity  of  consciousness  or  functional  personal  identity  will  be  appar- 
ent from  several  facts,  (a)  In  the  dissolution  of  all  compounds  some 
characteristic  is  apparently  wholly  lost.  For  instance,  the  power  of 
water  to  ouench  fire  is  not  retained  in  its  elements.  Hence  the  inde- 
structibility of  matter  leaves  open  the  question  whether  consciousness 
is  an  accident  of  composition  or  a  fundamental  attribute  of  an  organ- 
ism or  monad  that  survives  change,  (b)  The  evidence  for  the  reten- 
tion of  identity  in  phenomenal  changes  as  represented  by  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  is  not  so  clear  as  in  the  indestructibility  of  matter.  The 
retention  of  gravity  is  the  evidence  of  this  in  the  doctrine  of  the  in- 
destructibility of  matter,  but  in  the  phenomena  illustrating  the  conser- 
vation (correlation,  as  shown  above  is  the  better  conception  for  the 
facts)  of  energy  there  is  not  always  the  evidence,  if  it  ever  exists,  that  one 
of  the  terms  is  converted  into  the  other  in  any  way  to  involve  identity 
of  kind  in  functional  action.  Hence  qualitatively  the  conservation  of 
energy  is  an  undecided  doctrine,  and  is  so  undetermined  that  some  will 
tell  us  that  it  is  only  the  quantity  of  energy  that  remains  the  same. 
Assuming,  therefore,  that  qualitatively  there  is  a  change  we  find  that 
the  facts  would  seem  to  imply  that  consciousness,  if  any  attempt  were 
made  *-o  bring  it  under  the  conservation  of  energy,  would  not  retain  its 
identity  in  any  transformation  of  which  it  might  be  conceived  as  capa- 
ble. If  the  conservation  of  energy  be  true  qualitatively  the  retention 
of  its  identity  would  follow  as  a  necessity  and  the  problem  of  a  future 
life  solved  within  the  domain  of  physics.  But  it  is  the  doubt  about 
this  continuity  in  kind  that  makes  it  necessary  to  prove  personal  iden- 
tity as  a.  fact  to  assure  ourselves  either  that  the  conservation  of  energy 
favors  the  belief  or  that  it  is  true  independently  of  that  doctrine.  The 
problem  thus  becomes  scientific  rather  than  philosophic. 


CHAPTER   XII. 


THE   EXISTENCE   OF   GOD. 


The  layman  never  fully  realizes  the  vastness  of  his  problem  when 
he  begins  to  discuss  the  existence  of  God.  He  is  not  even  aware  of 
the  various  influences  that  make  it  a  problem  for  him ;  but  between  a 
semi-philosophic  mood  on  the  nature  of  things  and  a  moral  interest  in 
the  dispensation  of  a  system  forcing  upon  him  the  sense  of  dependence 
and  inviting  curiosity  in  regard  to  his  destiny,  he  invokes  a  conception 
that  hovers  about  the  horizon  of  history  and  hope  with  all  the  haze 
and  majesty  of  both  poetry  and  religion,  seeking  a  justification  at  the 
hands  of  philosophy.  He  only  discovers  his  exposure  to  illusion  when 
he  begins  to  criticize  what  poetry  never  understands  and  never  pre- 
tends to  take  as  real.  The  progress  of  intelligence  involves  him  in 
questions  of  doubt  and  assertion  which  are  not  on  the  surface  of  his 
reflections,  while  both  his  poetry  and  religion  have  only  followed  the 
lead  of  fancy  after  science  had  formed  systematic  and  supersensible  con- 
ceptions of  the  world.  The  unity  of  nature  was  the  precursor  of  a  revo- 
lution in  other  ideas .  The  original  impulses  of  mankind  seem  not  to  have 
troubled  the  imagination  with  any  single  sovereignty  over  the  processes 
of  "  nature"  except  that  of  Fate.  The  gods  were  as  numerous  as  the 
elements  and  it  was  only  when  the  unity  of  the  cosmos  forced  itself 
upon  conviction  that  the  divine  also  assumed  a  monotheistic  concep- 
tion. In  Greek  thought  this  did  not  take  the  form  of  a  creator  of  the 
world,  but  only  of  its  providential  ordering.  Matter  was  conceived  as 
coeternal  with  God,  but  subject  to  his  plastic  hand  as  a  disposer  except 
in  the  Epicurean  system  where  the  gods  had  to  be  relegated  to  the  in- 
termundia  in  order  to  eliminate  their  caprices  from  disturbing  the 
proper  order  of  nature  and  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  them  harmless  y 
so  that  there  could  be  no  motive  for  the  interference  of  divine  power. 
Only  in  some  of  the  best  poets  did  the  conception  of  Jupiter  take  on  char- 
acteristics inviting  to  respect  and  reverence.  The  minor  gods  and  all 
conceptions  of  the  divine  in  general  parlance  represented  a  system  of 
tyrannical  and  irresponsible  agencies  without  moral  character  or  human 
interest  and  no  better,  or  even  worse,  than  the  order  of  nature.  This 
could  be  reckoned  with  for  regularity,  but  the  gods  never.  This  un- 
ideal  character  of  the  divine  exhibited  itself  wherever  polytheism  pre- 

33  5'3 


5H  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

vailed  and  it  was  the  moralization  of  man  beyond  and  above  the  con- 
ception of  the  gods  that  gave  scepticism  its  sting  when  it  attacked 
their  existence.  Power  without  morality  was  the  conception  which 
described  them,  as  this  immunity  was  the  ideal  of  Greek  life,  and  it 
reflected  itself  even  in  the  monotheistic  conception,  save  as  this  was 
modified  by  the  higher  idea  of  yEschylus  and  others.  But  at  no  time 
did  the  conception  of  God  as  primarily  interested  in  man  for  man's 
own  sake  become  a  prevalent  idea  of  Greek  thought.  Justice  and  not 
mercy  was  his  chief  attribute.  But,  as  I  have  already  remarked, 
Christianity  gave  the  idea  a  new  content  and  relation.  It  made  God 
the  creator  of  the  cosmos  both  sensible  and  supersensible,  conceived 
his  relation  to  it  as  predetermining  its  order  in  behalf  of  the  present 
and  future  interest  of  man,  insisted  upon  his  personality,  and  estab- 
lished such  a  social  relation  between  himself  and  his  creatures  as  re- 
dounded equally  to  the  honor  of  the  divine  as  bestower  and  to  the 
benefit  of  man  as  the  recipient.  Mercy  was  added  to  justice  as  his 
attribute. 

In  the  manifold  exigencies  of  mediaeval  civilization  and  speculation 
these  various  conceptions,  associated  with  many  details  in  a  providen- 
tial scheme,  worked  themselves  out  into  a  dogmatic  system  and  be- 
came implicated  in  the  nature  and  validity  of  many  dialectical  and 
metaphysical  doctrines  of  an  exceedingly  dubious  character.  It  would 
be  no  light  task  merely  to  trace  the  development  of  this  movement, 
and  though  it  would  not  be  wholly  thankless,  it  is  not  necessary  for 
the  purposes  of  this  work  to  rethresh  any  barren  straw  for  the  small 
amount  of  wheat  to  be  found  in  its  chaff.  It  is  possible  to  traverse 
the  great  ideas  associated  with  the  name  of  God  and  to  examine  one 
of  the  immemorial  problems  of  philosophy  without  any  elaborate  his- 
torical analysis  of  mediaeval  thought.  We  cannot,  however,  wholly 
ignore  the  setting  which  it  received  in  the  discussions  of  Kant.  That 
philosopher  is  supposed  to  have  put  an  end  to  legitimate  discussion  of 
the  problem  along  the  lines  of  traditional  argument  and  to  have  left  the 
idea  to  the  irresponsible  deliverances  of  faith  and  intuition,  which  no 
one  any  longer  trusts.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  it  was  the  dia- 
lectic treatment  of  the  question  by  Kant  that  placed  the  existence  of 
God  among  the  relics  in  the  museum  of  antiquities  or  jeopardized  its 
validity  and  power.  This  was  only  the  excuse  for  influences  that  no 
more  embodied  themselves  in  logical  forms  like  the  antinomies  than 
did  Kant's  "  practical "  reasons  for  the  validity  of  the  belief,  though 
they  are  capable  of  that  organization.  The  chief  factor  in  the  decline 
of  the  conception  and  belief  has  been  the  progress  of  science,  and  it 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  515 

was  only  when  the  philosopher  had  to  seek  some  plausible  excuse  for 
his  indifference  to  the  question,  or  for  his  incompetence  in  the  discus- 
sion of  it,  that  he  sought  a  defence  in  the  dialectics  of  Kant.  The  idea 
simply  died  the  natural  death  of  miracles  and  for  the  same  reason, 
namely,  its  incompatibility  with  the  facts  of  science.  Mr.  Lecky  has 
correctly  shown  that  it  was  not  philosophic  argument  that  was  the 
chief  agency  in  causing  the  decline  of  the  belief  in  the  supernatural, 
but  it  was  the  gradual  elanguescence  of  it  owing  to  the  slow  saturation 
of  the  public  mind  with  the  ideas  of  science  and  physical  law.  It  was 
the  same  with  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  God,  and  the  tribute  paid 
to  Kant's  antinomies  is  either  an  afterthought  or  ignorance  of  the  real 
influences  at  work.  The  two  conceptions  which  it  was  difficult  to 
withstand  were  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  conservation  of 
energy,  as  dispensing  with  the  necessity  of  creation  in  any  form.  As 
long  as  it  was  assumed  that  matter  and  motion  were  created,  that  is, 
had  a  beginning  in  time,  the  conception  of  God  was  a  necessary  com- 
plement of  it.  It  was  not  a  question  of  "  ontological,"  cosmological, 
or  teleological  arguments,  but  of  necessary  implication  in  the  real  or 
supposed  facts  with  which  reflection  started.  All  the  rest  was  a  mat- 
ter of  detail  rendering  intelligible  a  cosmic  order  once  initiated.  But 
the  moment  that  science  proved  the  persistence  of  matter  in  all  its 
changes  of  form  and  the  conservation  of  energy  in  all  its  transforma- 
tions, a  perfectly  definite  evasion  of  the  old  implication  was  made  pos- 
sible, and  from  that  time  the  traditional  conception  of  God  was  doomed 
either  to  extinction  or  revision.  The  facts  afforded  a  substitute  idea 
for  the  explanation  of  the  cosmos,  if  explanation  it  be,  and  the  law  of 
parsimony  in  human  thought  will  not  tolerate  two  rival  contestants  for 
the  explanation  of  the  same  phenomena.  The  consequence  has  been 
that  in  proportion  as  the  new  conception  could  work  itself  into  the  de- 
tails of  cosmic  events,  extending  our  ignorance  of  its  plan  as  much  as 
our  knowledge  of  its  laws,  just  in  that  proportion  has  the  scholastic 
idea  of  God  suffered  eclipse  or  gradually  retired  into  that  limbo  of  for- 
gotten intellectual  furniture  which  can  no  longer'excite  any  but  an  an- 
tiquarian interest.  In  its  place  has  appeared  the  conception  of  "  Na- 
ture" and  its  "  laws."  Personality  and  providence  have  disappeared 
behind  the  clouds  of  science  and  an  impersonal  order  substituted  for 
divine  beneficence.  The  conception  of  "  Nature,"  as  a  substitute,  will 
not  bear  analysis,  because  it  is  a  name  for  a  fact,  not  for  a  cause.  But 
it  is  convenient  for  limiting  the  pretensions  of  knowledge  where  the 
temptations  of  its  devotees  would  be  to  try  the  revelation  of  a  rational 
order  for  which  the  evidence  is  insufficient. 


516  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

As  long  as  any  fixed  order  is  admitted  by  man,  it  will  check  the 
presumption  that  desires  too  readily  to  personify  it ;  not  because  that 
personification  is  impossible,  but  because  it  is  either  evidentially  weak 
or  supports  no  personality  inconsistent  with  the  stability  of  the  cosmic, 
order.  If  the  whole  system  can  be  described  as  an  undeviating  one  no 
demands  can  be  made  on  its  charity  which  are  inconsistent  with  the 
general  plan.  Hence  the  idea  of  "  Nature  "  is  a  useful  one  for  check- 
ing spiritual  pride  and  arrogance,  and  teaching  man  that,  whatever 
ideals  he  cherishes,  he  must  conform  his  life  to  an  inflexible  order. 
But  he  is  never  satisfied  with  such  a  system  unless  he  can  believe  that 
it  is  personal.  The  Greeks  were  so  prepossessed  with  the  idea  that 
personality  was  capricious  and  lawless  and  that  nature  represented  a 
fateful  mechanical  order  that  the  Christian  obtained  his  footing  by  a 
doctrine  of  personal  creation  making  the  Divine  benevolent  to  com- 
pensate for  the  apparently  tragic  fixity  of  nature.  Man  has  had  to 
qualify  personality  with  mercy  as  a  limitation  to  capriciousness. 
He  can  submit  with  patience  and  hope  to  an  unchangeable  mechanism 
and  to  the  disappointment  of  many  of  his  ideals,  if  he  can  venture  to 
believe  that  somehow  the  process  of  evolution  will  respect  the  chief 
values  which  it  has  itself  created.  The  conception  of  God  was 
the  last  effort  of  philosophy  to  secure  a  basis  for  such  hopes,  and 
suffers  only  because  the  evidence  for  them  seems  less  cogent  than  is 
desired.  In  addition  to  being  the  supposed  cause  of  the  order  in  which 
we  live  and  have  our  being,  God  is  also  the  idealization  of  all  that  man 
can  conceive  of  the  true,  the  beautiful  and  the  good.  This  can  be  said 
in  spite  of  the  hideous  dogmas  that  have  been  associated  with  the 
scheme  of  Christian  belief  in  some  of  its  forms.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
this  idealization  of  the  concept,  man  would  not  have  felt  so  keenly  the 
loss  of  it  attributed  to  the  progress  of  science  and  the  dialectics  of 
Kant.  The  progress  in  his  civilization,  involving  the  humanizing  of 
all  his  instincts  and  his  rising  above  "  nature  "  while  he  obeyed  it,  left 
behind  it  that  reverence  for  personality  which  can  never  be  bestowed 
upon  a  mechanical  system,  whatever  source  of  pleasure  and  admiration 
it  may  represent,  and  the  consequence  is  that  he  may  never  willingly 
abandon  the  effort  to  see  in  the  course  of  things,  which  extorts  from 
him  so  imperiously  the  feeling  of  dependence,  that  rational  movement 
of  intelligence  and  hope  which  must  always  color  with  its  own  hues 
his  little  span  of  toil  and  care. 

But  it  is  precisely  because  of  this  rich  personal  content  that  the 
conception  is  exposed  to  the  cruelties  of  criticism.  In  the  order  which 
man  himself  makes  he  is  a  master  and  his  creations  form  the  standard 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  Sll 

by  which  he  is  wont  to  judge  "  nature  "  that  marks  with  a  shadow 
whatever  beneficence  it  exhibits.  Man's  moral  nature  is  accustomed 
to  think  that  it  cannot  look  on  that  Medusa  head  and  live.  The  flush 
of  conquest  which  he  feels  in  his  triumphs  over  physical  "  nature  " 
will  not  easily  inspire  respect  for  the  object  that  is  so  plastic  to  his 
own  will,  though  the  reserve  of  unconquered  power  that  it  shows  can 
still  invoke  his  fear,  and  he  turns,  Psyche  like,  to  indulge  his  curiosity 
and  hope  in  uncovering  Pandora's  box  only  to  find  that  "  the  earth, 
green  as  she  looks,  rests  everywhere  on  dread  foundations  were  we 
further  down  and  Pan,  to  whose  music  the  nymphs  dance,  has  a  cry 
in  him  that  can  drive  all  men  distracted."  The  beautiful  vision  of 
poetry  and  religion  in  that  discovery  turns  into  a  waste,  and  criticism 
leaves  an  inheritance  of  ignorance  which  it  conceals  in  the  name  of 
14  Nature."  Whether  we  shall  ever  get  beyond  this  condition  of  mind 
depends  as  much  upon  our  revision  of  the  traditional  conception  of 
44  Nature  "  as  upon  the  revision  of  that  of  God.  The  arguments  remain 
as  they  always  have  been,  only  awaiting  the  conception  and  the  facts 
which  are  to  determine  the  measure  of  their  applicability. 

Philosophy  has  generally  conceded  the  forcefulness  of  the  Kantian 
antinomies,  and  in  most  cases  their  conclusive  influence  in  favor  of 
agnosticism,  which  in  actual  convictions  has  amounted  to  a  denial. 
These  antinomies  were  conceived  as  dividing  the  arguments  equally 
for  and  against  the  infinity  of  the  world  in  time  and  space,  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  and  the  existence  of  God.  But  I  mean  here  to  challenge 
the  solidity  of  this  position.  I  do  not  think  that  any  such  antinomies 
exist  as  Kant  affirms.  I  shall  not  deny  a  certain  kind  of  formal  difficulty 
in  the  discussion  of  the  questions  proposed,  but  it  is  a  perplexity  that 
is  created  by  a  total  misconception  of  what  the  problem  of  explanation 
is  and  of  the  source  of  the  alleged  antinomies.  That  the  antinomies  are 
not  so  clear  can  be  shown,  I  think,  in  the  simple  fact  that  an  analysis 
of  the  concepts  which  gave  Kant  his  trouble  would  have  dissolved 
the  antinomies  into  air.  They  grow  wholly  out  of  equivocations  in 
the  terms  that  suggest  them.  Take  the  instance  of  the  controversy 
regarding  the  finitude  and  the  infinitude  of  the  world.  In  stating  his 
case  Kant  should  have  given  us  a  preliminary  conception  of  what  he 
meant  by  the  "  world."  The  whole-  force  of  the  antithesis  between 
the  two  views  and  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  conviction  for  one  side  or 
the  other  is  the  equivocal  import  of  the  term  "  world."  That  term  is 
sometimes  used  to  denote  the  physical  universe  in  space  and  time  and 
not  including  space  and  time  themselves.  At  other  times  it  includes 
these,  and  consequently  alters  the  right  to  apply  various  predicates  to  it. 


518  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Again  the  term  is  often  convertible  with  the  sensible  physical  world  as 
distinct  both  from  space  and  time  and  from  the  supersensible  physical 
world  whether  distinct  from  space  and  time  or  not.  Now  whether 
finitude  or  infinitude  is  predicable  of  this  "world"  will  depend  wholly 
upon  which  conception  of  the  term  is  adopted.  If  it  denotes  the  sen- 
sible universe  to  the  exclusion  of  space  and  time,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion whatever  of  its  finitude  and  the  assertion  of  the  possibility  of  the 
opposite  is  preposterous,  and  simply  contrary  to  fact.  Space  and  time 
are  our  sole  measures  of  infinitude  and  of  whatever  objects  we  suppose 
this  attribute  we  must  at  the  same  time  assume  them  coterminous  with 
space  or  time.  The  admitted  infinitude  of  space  and  time  from  which 
the  sensible  world  is  supposedly  excluded  in  the  conception  just  men- 
tioned settles  the  question  of  its  finitude  once  for  all.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  space  and  time  are  included  in  the  conception  of  the  "  world  "  or  uni- 
verse, there  can  equally  be  no  question  of  its  infinitude,  as  this  character 
is  imposed  upon  it  by  the  inclusion  of  space  and  time  in  the  thing 
named.  Now  Kant  admits  the  infinitude  of  space  and  time  and  should 
have  observed  that  the  whole  problem  of  finitude  and  infinitude  was 
determined  solely  by  the  question  of  their  inclusion  or  exclusion  in  the 
conception  of  the  "  world  "  or  "  universe."  The  difficulty,  of  course, 
arose  from  the  Cartesian  and  Spinozistic  conception  of  matter  which 
applied  to  a  supersensible  reality  and  was  supposed  to  occupy  all  space, 
the  sensible  "  world"  being  that  modification  of  it  apparent  to  sense. 
The  question  that  Kant  really  raised  was  whether  this  supersensible 
"world"  was  finite  or  infinite,  and  he  could  well  resolve  that  into 
insoluble  alternatives,  while  he  omitted  to  recognize  that  it  was  the 
sensible  "  world"  that  had  created  the  entire  problem  of  philosophy. 
The  same  remarks  apply  to  the  question  of  its  beginning  in  time. 
If  time  is  a  part  of  the  "  world"  concerned,  its  beginning  is  an  absurd 
assumption ;  if  it  is  not  part  of  the  "  world,"  it  is  not  absurd  to  sup- 
pose a  beginning  for  it,  but  a  question  of  evidence.  If,  assuming  that 
time  is  not  included  in  the  conception,  the  "world"  is  conceived  as 
the  sensible  world  of  time,  its  finite  character  and  its  beginning  in 
time  is  a  given  fact,  and  nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  this  view  on 
the  premises  of  Kant's  own  system.  For,  space  and  time  not  being 
properties  of  reality  fer  se  and  only  "forms  of  perception,"  subjective 
products  of  the  mind,  the  "  material  "  world  of  sense  had  to  be  both 
finite  and  to  have  a  beginning  in  time.  But  this  way  of  looking  at  it 
as  more  or  less  unnecessary  as  well  as  unintelligible,  the  main  point 
is  that  the  exclusion  of  time  from  the  sensible  "world"  involves  its 
beginning  in  that  time.     The  whole  of  physical  science  is  based  upon 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  519 

the  assumption  that  the  sensible  "world"  had  such  a  beginning. 
Otherwise  its  attempt  to  explain  it  by  an  antecedent  cause  is  mani- 
festly absurd.  The  conception  that  gives  trouble  in  supposing  a  begin- 
ning is  either  that  which  is  an  abstraction  of  the  various  conditions  of 
reality  representing  a  series  of  phenomena,  in  which  the  conception 
of  the  "  world"  would  have  no  meaning,  if  we  made  it  infinite,  or  that 
which  tries  to  comprehend  both  the  sensible  and  the  supersensible 
"  worlds  "  in  its  embrace.  The  "  phenomenal  world  "  has  a  beginning 
in  time  or  it  is  not  "  phenomenal."  The  permanent  element  in  it,  if 
we  may  use  that  expression,  has  no  beginning  implied  by  what  is 
manifestly  temporal,  except  as  its  cause.  We  should  have  to  seek 
independent  evidence  of  its  beginning.  Kant  simply  forgot  that  he  was 
dealing  with  highly  refined  abstractions  of  which  nothing  can  really 
be  said  one  way  or  the  other.  It  is  only  the  concrete  that  is  open  to 
determination.  The  concrete  "world"  of  which  we  affirm  a  begin- 
ning is  that  which  bears  evidence  on  its  face  of  its  being  "  phenomenal." 
This  evidence  may  be  immediate  or  inferential,  but  one  or  the  other, 
it  is  the  condition  for  seeking  any  antecedent  fact  or  cause  whatever. 
If  the  "  world"  is  the  cause,  its  character,  "phenomenal"  or  "  nou- 
menal,"  cannot  be  assumed  without  defining  the  sense  in  which  "  cause  " 
is  taken.  If  it  be  phenomenal  the  word  is  a  name  for  only  what  is 
known  and  that  is  finite  and  has  a  beginning.  If  it  is  a  name  for  the 
noumenal,  it  is  a  word  for  the  permanent  element  in  concrete  members 
of  a  series  or  congeries  of  events  each  of  which  has  a  beginning.  But 
in  no  case  can  we  discuss  the  problem  without  recognizing  the  equiv- 
ocal nature  of  our  terms. 

That  Kant  did  not  discover  the  source  of  his  logical  difficulties  is 
all  the  more  remarkable  when  we  examine  his  observations  on  some 
paradoxical  statements  of  the  Eleatic  Zeno.  Plato  had  chided  that 
philosopher  for  saying  that  God  (the  "  world")  was  neither  finite  nor 
infinite,  in  motion  or  at  rest,  or  like  or  unlike  anything  else.  Kant 
defends  Zeno  by  first  including  space  in  the  conception  of  the  "  world," 
a  position  which  enables  him  to  say  correctly  enough  that  this  left  no 
reality  outside  of  it  for  comparison.  To  be  like  or  unlike  another 
requires  that  at  least  two  should  be  given,  that  there  should  be  this 
other  given  for  comparison,  and  such  could  not  be  assumed  when 
space  and  its  total  contents  described  all  possible  reality  as  the  whole 
to  which  predicates  were  attachable.  Of  course,  if  there  is  only  one 
thing  in  existence  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  either  like  or  unlike  another. 
But  Kant  and  Zeno  secure  the  correctness  of  their  position  only  by 
assuming  a  conception  of  their  terms  which  is  not  in  the  minds  of  their 


520  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

opponents.  The  "  world"  of  usual  parlance  is  what  is  in  space  and 
time,  and  generally  is  only  the  sensible  in  them.  We  can  very  well 
ascribe  certain  definite  predicates  to  this  in  comparison  with  such  things 
as  space  and  time.  It  can  be  said  to  be  either  like  or  unlike  these. 
Assuming  again  that  the  "  world  "  is  the  "  known  "  sensible  "  world  " 
a  comparison  with  the  "known"  supersensible  "world"  would  be 
possible  apart  from  their  relation  to  space  and  time.  This  becomes 
perfectly  apparent  from  Kant's  isolation  of  the  question  of  this 
"  world's  "  finitude  or  infinitude  from  that  of  its  qualitative  compari- 
son with  other  things.  He  distinctly  and  deliberately  postpones  this 
question  to  take  up  that  of  the  possible  comparison  of  the  "  world  " 
with  something  else.  He  thus  obtains  the  advantage  of  impressing 
the  reader  with  his  initial  correctness  and  the  rest  will  be  supposed  to 
follow.  But  when  he  comes  to  take  up  the  question  of  the  "  world's  " 
infinitude  he  excludes  space  from  it  as  a  part  of  the  necessary  conception 
involved,  which  he  has  no  right  to  do,  if  he  still  intends  to  defend 
Zeno. 

The  supposed  antinomy  between  determinism  and  freedom  is  a 
palpable  absurdity  when  we  consider  that  Kant  finally  asserts  the  fact 
of  free  will.  His  distinction  between  "  phenomenal  "  and  "  noumenal  " 
causation,  or  "  empirical  "  determinism  and  "  transcendental  "  freedom 
fools  no  one  but  those  who  love  unintelligible  phrases.  There  is  no 
possible  antithesis  between  "  phenomenal "  and  "noumenal"  causa- 
tion. The  simple  observation  that  he  was  dealing  with  different  orders 
of  events  or  facts,  as  his  own  theory  of  consciousness  required  him  to 
do,  would  have  eliminated  all  antithesis  between  the  "  causality  "  of 
nature  and  the  "  causality"  of  volitions,  and  in  fact  the  force  of  his 
contention  for  freedom  was  actually  based,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, upon  this  distinction  which  removed  all  excuse  for  supposing 
any  antinomy  in  the  problem  of  free  will.  Moreover,  his  "  empirical" 
or  "phenomenal"  causation  is  not  causation  at  all,  but  mere  coexist- 
ence and  sequence  with  causal  efficiency  left  out.  His  advocacy  of 
free  action,  no  matter  how  it  was  qualified,  involved  an  absolute  begin- 
ning of  certain  "  phenomena"  in  direct  opposition  to  the  claims  made 
in  discussing  the  first  antinomy.  If  any  events  in  the  system  of  "  phe- 
nomena "  have  a  beginning  it  is  only  a  question  of  evidence  whether 
all  antecedents  are  not  in  the  same  class. 

The  antinomy  about  the  existence  of  God  is  no  better  than  the 
others.  There  is  a  certain  impressiveness  in  both  its  strength  and 
weakness  as  seen  in  the  cosmological  argument,  though  this  is  due  to 
questions  not  discussed  by  Kant  at  all.     Its  strength  appears  in  the 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  521 

accepted  fact  that  some  things  do  actually  begin  in  time  and  that  their 
"  cause  "  is  sought  in  an  antecedent  fact.  Its  weakness  lies  in  the  sup- 
position that,  if  any  "phenomena"  are  caused  by  antecedent  "phe- 
nomena," there  is  no  possibility  of  an  absolute  beginning  in  time,  and 
that  all  causation  necessarily  involves  antecedent  "  phenomena."  The 
actual  procedure  of  science  is  a  regressus  to  anterior  conditions  which 
it  treats  as  the  cause  of  the  consequent,  but  whose  further  origin  it  may 
not  investigate  or  be  able  to  discover,  and  hence  it  simply  interprets 
the  events  which  come  within  the  range  of  experience  as  links  in  a 
chain  without  end,  if  it  assumes  that  all  antecedents  must  be  "phe- 
nomena." It  never  reaches  the  prius  or  initium  which  the  cosmo- 
logical  argument  is  supposed  to  demand.  But  what  I  shall  contend  is 
that  the  cosmological  argument  misconceives  the  whole  problem,  and 
that  any  attempt  to  reduce  the  principle  of  causation  to  its  type  must 
result  in  giving  up  causation  of  any  and  all  kinds  whatever.  What 
can  be  disputed  at  the  outset  is  the  assumption  that  causation  neces- 
sarily involves  antecedent  "phenomena"  and  it  is  this  assumption 
alone  that  gives  the  cosmological  argument  all  the  force  which  it 
appears  to  have.  Every  cause  may  be  antecedent  to  its  effect,  but  it 
is  not  necessarily  an  antecedent  "  phenomenon."  Kant  shows  rather 
clearly  that  he  would  have  accepted  the  claims  of  the  cosmological 
point  of  view,  if  he  could  have  done  so  free  from  the  logical  difficul- 
ties which  incumber  it ;  for  he  returns  to  it  again  and  again  and  accu- 
mulates upon  it  all  the  objections  that  it  has  to  meet.  But  it  is  his 
false  conception  of  causality  that  creates  his  difficulties  at  this  point  and 
his  failure  to  realize  the  immovable  importance  of  the  fact  that  there 
are  "  phenomena  "  representing  an  absolute  beginning  in  time,  a  fact 
that  would  be  impossible  on  the  cosmological  conception  as  it  is 
abstractly  represented.  Such  a  fact  certainly  indicates  some  limits  to 
the  assertion  that  a  finite  regressus  of  phenomena  is  necessary  to  the 
supposition  of  original  causation.  If  Kant  had  realized  that  the 
principle  of  causation  was  not  "phenomenal"  at  all,  he  could  have 
admitted  any  regressus  that  science  might  require,  whether  finite  or 
infinite,  and  have  remained  undisturbed  by  the  cosmological  conception 
of  the  problem.  In  fact,  his  very  conception  of  free  causation  required 
him  to  place  the  notion  of  cause  in  the  transphenomenal,  as  well  as  the 
conception  of  the  reality  that  was  assumed  to  produce  sensation  with- 
out being  sensation.  Had  he  had  any  right  on  his  system  to  have  a 
"  thing  in  itself,"  which  he  said  existed  and  yet  we  did  not  "  know," 
we  might  effectively  eradicate  the  difficulties  which  he  felt  in  the  cos- 
mological argument ;  for  we  have  here  a  conception  that  defies  the 


522  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

limitations  of  a  finite  regressus  and  which  was  yet  the  primary  stage 
and  type  of  causality  in  the  early  development  of  Kant's  philosophy. 
At  first  his  "  thing  in  itself"  was  the  cause  of  sensations,  but  this  was 
finally  thrown  out  as  a  reality  unknown  and  ' '  objects  "  retained  in  its 
place,  but  never  made  clear  enough  to  know  what  they  were  or  meant. 
A  reformed  "  thing  in  itself,"  that  is  a  subject  of  some  kind  as  the 
basis  of  functional  action,  is  what  is  necessary  in  the  case,  one  which 
can  exercise  the  function  of  causality  without  being  itself  a  "  phe- 
nomenon." Had  Kant  seen  this  his  cosmological  argument  would 
have  remained  in  the  field  of  mere  "  science"  where  it  belongs,  this 
department  of  investigation  being  concerned  with  the  laws  of  "phe- 
nomena "  and  their  association  in  antecedence  and  sequence,  not  with 
causal  problems  primarily  or  ultimately.  It  seeks  antecedents,  but 
does  not  require  to  determine  that  all  antecedents  shall  be  "phe- 
nomenal" or  whether  any  of  them  may  be  "  noumenal "  or  'not,  that 
is,  whether  they  may  be  subjects  giving  rise  to  their  own  modes  of 
action,  such  as  free  wills,  Leibnitzian  monads,  individual  centers  of 
reference  and  action  as  creations  of  the  Absolute  or  as  modal  manifes- 
tations of  it,  or  Carlyle's  "  light  sparkles  floating  in  the  ether  of 
Deity."  On  such  assumption  the  cosmological  argument  would  have 
taken  a  subordinate  place  in  his  system. 

I  do  not  criticise  his  treatment  of  the  "ontological "  argument,  as 
that  is  conclusive  enough  from  the  definition  and  conception  of  it  ad- 
vanced. Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  the  fact  that  the  "  idea"  of  a 
thing  is  no  guarantee  of  its  objective  reality.  The  definition  and  con- 
ception of  God  no  more  carries  with  it  his  existence  or  the  proof  of  it 
than  the  definition  and  conception  of  a  Centaur  guarantees  its  existence. 
No  sort  of  logical  legerdemain  can  construe  the  doctrine  in  any  other 
way,  except  by  giving  a  certain  specific  meaning  to  the  term  "  idea." 
I  think  that  it  is  quite  true  that  Kant's  and  the  usual  way  of  represent- 
ing this  "  ontological "  argument  may  not  be  wholly  just  to  its  actual 
import  in  the  minds  of  some  philosophers.  It  may  rightly  characterize 
the  positions  of  Anselm  and  Abelard  and  some  of  the  Wolffians,  but  it 
does  not  correctly  represent  that  of  Descartes.  This  last  philosopher 
did  not  rest  the  argument  on  the  mere  fact  that  we  have  an  "  idea  "  of 
God,  such  as  the  "idea"  of  a  Centaur,  or  of  a  "Thaler"  in  one's 
pocket,  but  upon  the  peculiar  character  of  that  "  idea."  It  was  the 
necessity  of  the  "  idea"  which  determined  the  necessity  of  supposing 
its  objective  and  existential  nature  or  reference.  The  "idea"  of  a 
Centaur,  he  would  say,  could  not  claim  this  character.  Descartes 
was,  therefore,  quite  consistent  and  invulnerable  to  Kant's  criticism, 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  523 

as  remarked  by  Kuno  Fischer  in  his  discussion  of  Descartes,  though 
we  may  still  have  the  privilege  of  disputing  the  correctness  of  Descartes' 
representation  of  the  case.  Hence  I  do  not  say  or  imply  that  Descar- 
tes was  right  in  his  position,  but  only  that  he  does  not  seem  to  be 
amenable  to  Kantian  criticism.  We  may  question  his  view  of  what 
the  "  idea  "  of  God  is,  namely,  a  necessary  "  idea,"  but  once  grant  its 
unique  character  distinct  from  other  "ideas"  and  the  major  premise 
of  Kant's  representation  does  not  apply.  But  we  may  also  say,  or 
have  said  against  us,  that  the  Cartesian  position  is  not  properly  "  onto- 
logical."  Descartes  may  beg  the  question,  but  his  position  is  not 
refutable  by  premises  founded  upon  "empirical"  conceptions.  I 
think  I  would  quite  agree  that  the  basis  of  the  argument  is  in  reality 
changed  by  Descartes  in  his  conception  of  it.  It  is  not  strictly 
"  ontological "  as  that  notion  is  usually  defined.  Kuno  Fischer  calls 
it  the  "  anthropological  "  argument,  conditioning  the  application  of 
the  "ontological"  afterward  to  a  necessary  "idea."  It  is  described 
in  a  way  to  show  that  the  principle  at  the  basis  of  it  and  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  divine  existence  is  in  reality  what  I  should  call  aetiological. 
This  view  of  it  I  conceive  to  represent  the  true  conception  of  the 
Cartesian  position  and  also  the  correct  way  to  regard  the  problem,  as 
well  as  the  form  of  all  discussion  of  reality,  not  merely  the  problem  of 
the  existence  of  God,  but  also  that  of  matter  and  all  other  real  or  sup- 
posed substance.  The  real  and  primary  trouble  with  the  problem  as 
it  was  conceived  by  Kant,  and  by  many  other  doubters  and  believers 
alike,  was  the  system  of  dualism  which  would  not  permit  the  appli- 
cation of  causality  without  distinguishing  between  that  which  ac- 
counted for  physical  "  phenomena"  and  that  which  was  necessary  to 
explain  mental  facts,  or  between  that  which  justified  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  matter  and  that  which  would  give  something  else  sover- 
eignty over  nature.  To  have  conceived  the  problem  of  the  existence 
of  God  and  that  of  matter  as  the  same  would  have  put  the  problem  on 
a  better  foundation  and  to  have  relieved  it  of  its  exposure  to  the  real 
or  imaginary  difficulties  involved  in  scepticism  generally,  even  though 
the  solution  of  the  problem  was  not  any  more  apparent  than  it  was  be- 
fore such  an  analysis  or  conception  of  it  was  suggested. 

The  main  criticism,  however,  which  can  be  directed  against  Kant's 
treatment  of  the  problem  is  the  fact  that  he  has  failed  to  recognize  two 
distinct  questions  in  it.  The  first  is  the  synthetic  nature  of  the  argu- 
ment, if  I  may  call  it  such,  and  the  second  is  the  distinction  between 
the  legitimacy  of  various  methods  of  argument  and  the  actual  success 
or  failure  of  their  application.     By  the  first  of  these  considerations  I 


524  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

mean  that  Kant  failed  to  properly  analyze  the  conception  of  God  in  its 
relation  to  the  methods  of  argument  affecting  different  "moments"  in  it. 
He  did  recognize  that  the  conception  of  God  stood  for  more  than  a  single 
predicate  or  characteristic,  but  in  applying  the  various  arguments  for 
the  proof  of  his  existence  he  failed  to  note  that  they  were  not  applica- 
ble one  and  all  separately  to  the  same  particular  result.  He  criticised 
the  "  ontological"  argument  as  if  it  were  sufficient  to  prove  the  whole 
case,  if  it  were  legitimate  at  all.  It  was  the  same  with  the  cosmolog- 
ical  and  teleological  arguments.  He  assumed  that  they  should  prove 
everything  or  nothing.  But  I  must  maintain  that  they  have  not  been 
fairly  treated.  The  cosmological  argument,  if  legitimate,  is  adapted 
only  to  the  idea  of  the  bare  Absolute,  and  not  to  intelligence  or  moral 
qualities.  The  teleological  argument  will  not  prove  an  Absolute,  but 
nothing  more  than  intelligence  and  morality,  if  the  data  are  present  for 
its  successful  application.  I  grant  that  their  weakness,  as  apparent  to 
the  ordinary  man,  lies  in  not  being  sufficient  to  prove  the  whole  case 
alone.  Nor  do  I  mean  to  imply  by  this  that,  if  they  have  any  legit- 
imacy at  all,  they  can  in  combination  effect  this  end.  While  I  grant 
that  they  have  a  value  as  methods  and  would  have  a  different  signifi- 
cance if  they  could  severally  support  distinct  aspects  of  the  conception 
before  us,  and  thus  effect  a  combination  that  might  be  useful  to  philo- 
sophical reflection,  there  are  conditions  necessary  to  make  them  suc- 
cessful which  are  dependent  upon  more  important  considerations  than 
mere  legitimacy  of  method. 

What  I  mean  by  this  last  remark  can  be  explained  only  by  an  analy- 
sis of  the  conception  of  God,  as  it  has  been  employed  for  many  cen- 
turies. This  I  shall  express  by  the  characteristic  of  causality,  intel- 
ligence, and  morality.  Whether  they  are  correctly  attributable  to 
such  a  being  is  not  now  the  question,  but  whether  they  do  or  do  not 
constitute  the  historical  conception  with  which  we  are  dealing.  Kant 
was  aware  of  its  complexity  and  recognized  that  the  idea  stood  for  both 
an  "  ens  realissimum"  and  a  "  highest  intelligence."  But  he  made 
no  effort  to  relate  these  characteristics  to  different  methods  of  proof. 
Moreover  he  had  to  do  his  thinking  in  an  atmosphere  which,  on  one 
side,  was  saturated  with  the  monism  of  Spinoza  and,  on  the  other,  with 
the  dualism  of  Descartes.  Kant  never  appreciated  the  monism  of  the 
one  and  could  not  accept  the  dualism  of  the  other.  The  arguments 
and  conceptions  that  were  adapted  to  the  dualistic  views  and  needs  of 
Christianity  had  tried  to  find  an  adjustment  to  the  physical  monism  of 
Spinoza,  which  had  been  the  result  of  that  scientific  movement  begun 
with  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  motion.     In  this  monistic  con- 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  525 

ception  and  situation  the  idea  of  God  had  to  share  in  that  of  matter  and 
spirit  combined  or  be  reduced  to  that  of  matter  alone  in  some  sense 
of  the  term,  and  hence  to  represent  in  either  case  an  absolute  substance 
whose  modes  were  its  own  evolution  and  not  independent  realities  in 
some  other  center  of  action,  even  though  created  by  this  absolute. 
Kant,  however,  was  too  much  infected  with  the  pluralistic  view  of 
things  as  represented  by  Leibnitz  to  see  clearly  where  the  difficulty 
arose  and  too  much  impressed  with  the  strength  of  the  mechanical  view 
of  nature  to  escape  these  difficulties,  and  hence  his  trouble  with  the 
cosmological  argument.  Besides  the  place  which  the  conception  of  a 
"  necessary  being  "  occupied  in  Kant's  discussion  of  the  problem,  as 
well  as  his  infatuation  for  "  necessary  "  and  "  a  priori"  truths,  shows 
how  he  was  infected  with  the  Spinozistic  conception  which  had  be- 
come wholly  divested  of  the  facts  and  assumptions  which  had  origi- 
nally given  rise  to  it,  namely,  the  phenomenal  universe  and  its  demand 
for  a  causal  ground.  The  "  necessity  "  for  believing  in  this  ground,  as 
determined  by  the  assumption  of  its  phenomenal  nature,  came  to  be 
applied  to  its  temporal  and  "  phenomenal  "  origin  rather  than  to  the 
obligation  to  suppose  it  as  the  complement  of  a  "phenomenal"  order. 
The  only  "  necessity"  in  the  case  is  epistemological,  not  metaphysical, 
as  that  has  often  been  conceived,  and  hence  is  wholly  conditioned  upon 
the  assumption  of  "  phenomena"  that  imply  it  but  do  not  determine  it. 
But  at  the  time  of  Kant  philosophy  had  lost  the  conception  of  "  nature  " 
which  necessitated  the  notion  of  a  Creator  and  it  was  of  course  quite 
natural  to  raise  the  question  of  his  existence.  The  new  position  of 
science  divided  the  eternal  between  matter  and  spirit  with  no  evidence 
of  the  latter,  and  left  no  room  for  the  unity  which  the  philosophic 
mind  demanded,  except  in  materialism,  and  the  consequence  was  that 
Kant  had  to  choose  between  the  persistence  of  force  and  a  reality  which 
could  claim  nothing  but  "  ontological  "  evidence  in  lieu  of  the  aetio- 
logical  which  fell  to  matter. 

I  shall  not  go  into  any  minute  historical  criticism  to  establish  this 
point  against  Kant.  I  intend  to  content  myself  with  the  general  ob- 
servation that  the  conception  of  this  transition  period  was  not  qualified 
to  represent  rightly  the  problem  which  the  question  regarding  the  ex- 
istence of  God  presents.  It  was  burdened  with  a  heritage  which  had 
not  made  itself  clear  in  its  relation  to  the  new  scientific  movement.  It 
was  the  traditional  conception  of  cosmic  views  that  were  associated 
with  a  theory  of  creation  and  that  appeared  irretrievably  shattered  by 
the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  motion,  that  originated  the  perplexi- 
ties felt.     Dualism  still  persisted  after  the  excuse  for  its  existence  had 


526  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

been  removed,  and  the  conception  of  God  seemed  to  be  as  superfluous 
as  the  Epicurean  divinities  in  the  intermundia.  Kant's  perplexity  in 
this  situation  was  certainly  pardonable.  But  I  think  that  we  shall 
wholly  miss  the  proper  point  of  view  in  the  question  if  we  either  accept 
his  statement  of  it  or  treat  his  view  as  anything  more  than  the  confusion 
of  a  transitional  stage,  a  period  infected  with  the  antithesis  between  mat- 
ter and  spirit  and  the  contradictions  of  a  providential  scheme  which 
made  the  cosmos  divine  while  it  repudiated  matter  as  a  moral  contami- 
nation, a  blotch  on  the  otherwise  fair  features  of  existence.  Having 
accepted  the  deus  ex  machina  theism  of  Aristotle  which  allowed  for 
the  self-evolution  of  a  material  system  once  created,  the  theistic  doc- 
trine was  now  face  to  face  with  a  material  and  mechanical  order  that 
had  finally  dispensed  with  the  need  of  a  specific  creation  by  means  of 
the  persistence  of  matter  and  motion  and  the  existence  of  a  whole  sys- 
tem of  internal  "  forces,"  a  position  that  forced  either  the  abandon- 
ment or  the  reconstruction  of  the  conception  of  the  divine.  The 
Aristotelian  first  cause  seemed  no  longer  necessary  as  the  prius  in  a 
finite  series  of  regressus  or  events,  and  speculation  was  left  with  an 
inert  eternal  in  matter  and  motion  to  struggle  with  the  problem  of  evo- 
lution and  change  as  best  it  could.  Science  did  not  know  what  it  had 
to  meet  in  this  relation  between  inertia  and  change  and  philosophy 
was  reluctant  to  put  its  finger  on  a  creatio  continua  doctrine  because 
it  was  frightened  at  the  bugbear  of  Pantheism.  Hence  Kant  and  phi- 
losophy were  confronted  with  that  condition  which  made  the  existence 
of  an  extra-material  cause  unnecessary  for  the  initiation  of  a  series  that 
never  began,  and  as  they  did  not  feel  sufficiently  the  significance  of  the 
fact  of  change  they  were  not  disposed,  because  of  the  traditional  con- 
ceptions of  transcendental  reality,  to  place  the  initiation  in  the  system 
with  which  it  was  dealing,  since  the  immemorial  doctrine  of  inertia 
stood  in  the  way  with  all  the  force  of  both  an  axiom  and  a  tradition. 
The  Aristotelian  and  scholastic  doctrines  required  only  a  first  cause, 
a  prime  mover  of  a  system  that  needed  no  further  regulation  or  inter- 
ference after  its  creation  or  disposition,  but  the  final  success  of  material- 
ism made  it  necessary  either  to  abandon  all  hope  of  the  divine  or  to  find 
it  immanent  in  the  system.  Finding  the  divine,  as  prevalently  conceived 
to  be  unnecessary,  Kant  had  to  make  it  a  "  thing  in  itself  "  and  place 
it,  like  the  Epicurean  gods  outside  the  material  system,  in  order  to 
avoid  denying  it  altogether.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  he  could  re- 
construct the  problem  so  that  its  first  motive  would  not  be  the  cos- 
mological  conception  and  its  first  argument  the  "  ontological,"  but  a 
principle  which  would  account  for  the  constancy  of  change,  not  the 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  S27 

primordial  initiation  of  a  system  which  was  abandoned  to  an  inertia 
actually  incompatible  with  evolution. 

This  last  remark  indicates  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  prob- 
lem has  to  be  considered.  It  is  the  modern  conception  of  evolution 
and  change  which  are  perpetual,  not  occasional,  and  the  still  more  im- 
portant conception  of  uniting  the  causes  of  "  phenomena  "  in  the  same 
subject  or  same  kind  of  subject,  that  predetermines  the  manner  of  dis- 
cussing the  existence  of  God.  The  place  of  cosmological  conceptions 
in  this  scheme  will  be  considered  again,  but  it  must  be  remarked  here 
that  they  take  a  secondary  and  not  the  primary  place  in  it. 

I  have  said  that  the  conception  of  God  represents  the  ideas  of 
cause,  of  intelligence  and  of  morality  as  the  basis  of  cosmic  action, 
and  the  question  next  is  whether  there  are  adequate  reasons  for  sup- 
posing any  such  agency  responsible  for  the  order  which  we  observe. 
But  I  can  neither  give  a  direct  answer  to  this  question  nor  enter  upon 
its  discussion  until  I  know  whether  I  am  asked  to  prove  or  deny  some- 
thing else  than  a  supersensible  physical  reality.  The  crux  of  all  diffi- 
culties in  this  perplexing  problem  is  not'in  the  conceptions  which  I 
have  said  define  the  idea  of  God  for  us,  but  it  is  the  far  more  impor- 
tant question  of  their  relation  to  the  body  of  scientific  knowledge  in 
our  possession.  This  was  a  question  which  hardly  had  any  existence 
in  early  Christian  thought  owing  to  that  imperfect  knowledge  of 
"  nature"  which  still  left  so  large  a  field  to  possible  miracle  or  irreg- 
ularity, and  the  generally  accepted  dualism  of  the  time.  As  long  as 
the  material  universe,  sensible  and  supersensible,  was  regarded  as  an 
absolutely  created  thing,  the  conception  of  God  added,  as  necessary  to 
it,  the  notion  of  immateriality  to  those  which  I  have  mentioned,  and 
hence  the  evidence  for  God's  existence  would  have  to  be  found  in 
considerations  which  implied  his  distinction  from  the  universe  as  well 
as  displaying  the  qualities  of  causality,  intelligence  and  moral  char- 
acter. The  existence  of  some  such  power  was  necessarily  implicated  in 
the  assumption  that  the  cosmos  was  an  effect,  a  "phenomenal"  and 
obedient  thing.  This  assumption  may  not  have  been  well  founded. 
With  that  I  have  nothing  to  do,  when  estimating  the  consequences  of  it 
once  made.  The  assumption  made  no  other  argument  necessary,  and 
if  the  term  "  ontological  "  could  be  adapted  to  such  a  situation  the 
argument  by  that  name  would  be  valid  and  conclusive  still.  I  would 
prefer  to  call  it  setiological,  as  we  shall  observe  later.  But  the  situa- 
tion which  commanded  the  inference  or  implication  was  completely 
altered  by  the  return  to  the  scientific  conception  of  the  indestructibility 
of  matter  without  any  alteration  of  the  conception  of  the  divine,  itself 


52S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

only  a  necessary  implication  of  the  destructibility  of  matter.  If  we 
could  discuss  the  question  in  terms  of  matter,  asking  whether  person- 
ality might  not  be  a  function  of  the  supersensible  background  which 
science  assumes  for  its  material  "  phenomena,"  the  problem  would 
offer  fewer  a  priori  difficulties.  But  the  situation,  as  defined  by  the 
present  condition  of  science  and  the  persistence  of  dualistic  assump- 
tions about  God,  requires  us  to  suppose  a  material  substratum  for  the 
cosmos  that  is  divested  of  personality  and  in  addition  the  assumption 
of  a  personal  reality  for  whom  there  was  supposed  to  be  no  need  in 
science,  but  for  whom  we  have  been  tavight  a  moral  need  that  appa- 
rently has  no  intimate  connection  with  the  physical  order.  What 
proof  is  possible  of  such  an  independent  being  must  be  a  matter  of  de- 
bate, especially  as  the  newer  views  of  the  cosmos  make  that  proof  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  antiquity.  The  absence  of  evidence  for  a  causal 
relation  to  the  origin  of  the  cosmos  and  the  moral  demand  for  a  teleo- 
logical  meaning  in  the  system  of  things  would  place  the  latter  concep- 
tion at  the  mercy  of  the  former,  as  it  did  in  Kant,  and  the  scientific 
requirement  for  causality  as  prior  to  purposive  relations  is  too  strong 
to  permit  the  moral  argument  any  weight  in  the  absence  of  that  caus- 
ality which  has  to  be  initiative.  The  choice  thus  seems  to  lie  between 
materialism  with  its  supposed  atheism  and  the  defense  of  theism  on  the 
ground  of  transcendency.  Theology  has  not  permitted  any  recon- 
struction by  noting  the  tendency  of  speculation  to  dematerialize 
matter,  that  is,  refine  the  old  conceptions  until  there  is  practically  no 
distinction  between  "  matter  "  and  spirit  as  once  conceived,  but  persists 
in  making  the  causal  intelligence,  which  it  calls  God,  an  agent  distinct 
from  all  matter  whatsoever,  and  so  conceived  it  is  impossible  to  make 
it  intelligible  or  to  suppose  it  capable  of  representing  any  causal  action 
in  the  cosmos.  When,  therefore,  any  man  is  called  upon  to  express 
his  convictions  about  the  existence  of  God,  he  is  confronted  with  the 
assumption  that  this  causal  agent  can  in  no  case  be  identified  with  any 
reality  like  matter.  It  is  not  enough  to  believe  that  there  is  intelligent 
causality  in  the  cosmic  system,  but  it  is  demanded  that  we  place  that 
intelligent  cause  outside  the  system  which  it  did  not  create  and  which 
we  are  simultaneously  told  neither  shows  evidence  of  intelligence  and 
morality  nor  requires  a  creative  force  to  make  its  existence  and  action 
intelligible.  This  simply  results  in  what  might  be  called  an  irretriev- 
able dualism.  There  is  no  objection  to  a  dualism  of  realities  that  show 
some  reciprocity  of  action  and  relation  to  each  other.  But  a  dualism 
which  both  connects  and  separates  distinct  realities  is  either  absurd  or 
represents  a  paradox  and  must  give  exceptionally  good  reasons  for  that 


THE  EXISTENCE   OF  GOD.  529 

mode  of  speech.  There  could  hardly  be  anything  more  than  a  me- 
chanical relation  between  two  eternal  and  independent  realities,  if  they 
can  be  gotten  into  relation  at  all,  and  the  very  theory  of  creation  re- 
quires it  to  be  more  than  mechanical.  The  evidence  of  the  divine 
existence  might  be  more  apparent,  if  the  relation  were  merely  mechan- 
ical, but,  assuming  the  divine  as  the  creator  of  the  system,  the  respon- 
sibility for  its  outcome  would  be  greater,  while  the  dynamic  character 
of  its  working  would  more  effectually  conceal  the  motives  that  govern 
it,  a  fact  which  is  sufficiently  concealed  in  the  mechanical  system. 
But  in  a  cosmos  which  found  God  only  a  disposer  of  its  order  and  not 
necessarily  the  only  agent  concerned  in  its  activity,  the  only  argument 
that  could  discover  his  presence  in  it  would  be  the  teleological,  and 
cosmological  considerations  of  the  scholastic  type  would  have  no  place 
in  the  evidence.  That  is,  efficient  and  material  causes  in  the  system 
and  supposed  to  dispense  with  the  idea  of  a  creator  of  anything  what- 
ever, might  suffice  to  account  for  all  but  its  teleology,  and  the  conse- 
quence would  be  that  "  nature"  would  have  nothing  divine  in  it  but 
only  outside  its  realm,  while  the  unity  of  the  system  would  be  sacri- 
ficed to  the  necessity  of  finding  the  divine  outside  the  machinery  by 
which  it  accomplishes  its  purpose  and  reveals  itself,  and  so  would 
prevent  the  determination  of  its  character  by  excluding  from  its  nature 
the  expression  of  what  we  actually  observe  and  admire  without  tracing 
its  causality  there.  This  is  to  say  that  the  fundamental  difficulty  of 
the  ordinary  theism  is  that  it  insists  so  radically  upon  the  transcen- 
dency of  God  in  its  cosmological  conception  of  creation,  while  it  ad- 
mits the  action  of  "  secondary"  causes,  that  between  what  "  nature" 
is  supposed  to  do  of  herself  and  what  is  left  for  providence,  the  oppo- 
sition between  matter  and  spirit  becomes  that  between  good  and  evil, 
as  determined  by  the  abstraction  of  the  divine  from  the  order  which  he 
is  assumed  to  have  made. 

In  regard  to  this  conception  that  the  world  was  created  by  God  and 
then  left  to  itself,  Lotze  makes  a  clear  statement.  He  says  :  "  I  will 
not  urge  the  objection  that  this  view  provides  only  a  limited  satisfac- 
tion to  our  feelings  ;  in  its  scientific  aspect  it  is  unintelligible  to  me. 
I  do  not  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  picture  of  God  withdrawing 
from  the  world  that  he  has  created,  and  leaving  it  to  follow  its  own 
course.  That  is  intelligible  in  a  human  artificer,  who  leaves  his  work 
when  it  is  finished  and  trusts  for  its  maintenance  to  the  universal  laws 
of  nature,  laws  which  he  did  not  make  himself,  and  which  not  he,  but 
another  for  him,  maintains  in  operation.  But  in  the  case  of  God  I 
cannot  conceive  what  this  cunningly  contrived  creation  of  a  self- 
34 


530  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sustaining  order  of  nature  could  be ;  nor  do  I  see  what  distinction 
there  can  be  between  this  view  and  the  view  that  God  at  each  moment 
wills  the  same  order,  and  preserves  it  by  this  very  identity  of  will. 
The  immanence  of  God  in  the  course  of  nature  could  not,  therefore, 
be  escaped  from  by  this  theory ;  if  nature  follows  mechanical  laws,  it 
is  the  divine  action  itself,  which,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  say,  obeys 
those  laws,  but  which  really  at  each  moment  creates  them.  For  they 
could  not  have  existed  prior  to  God  as  a  code  to  which  he  accommo- 
dated himself ;  they  can  only  be  the  expression  to  us  of  the  mode  of 
his  work." 

Having  decided  that  the  question  of  the  existence  of  God  involves 
an  insistence  upon  the  condition  that  ultimately  the  causality  of  the 
cosmos  shall  be  one,  either  as  a  creator  of  material  substance  or  identi- 
cal with  it,  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  three  subordinate  issues 
that  arise  and  which  were  mentioned  as  implied  by  the  term  God, 
namely,  causality,  intelligence  and  morality.  But  the  argument  which 
will  prove  each  of  these  characteristics  is  not  materially  the  same. 
The  process  is  what  I  shall  call  a  synthetic  one.  This  means  that 
each  predicate  must  be  added  on  to  the  preceding  one,  so  that  the 
proof  of  the  prior  characteristic  will  not  involve  a  deductive  inference 
to  the  latter  qualities.  Different  concrete  facts  are  involved  in  the  at- 
tainment of  the  complex  result.  But  the  primary  point  to  be  observed 
in  the  process  is  that  it  must  not  begin  with  the  assumption  of  any 
radical  severance  of  the  idea  of  God,  in  its  first  "  moment,"  from  that 
of  the  immediate  background  of  "  nature."  I  mean  to  insist  upon  a 
closer  relation  between  the  supersensible  of  Greek  thought  and  the 
superphysical  or  immaterial,  if  you  like,  the  supernatural,  of  Christian 
thought.  If  the  argument  requires  it,  I  would  interpose  no  objections 
to  their  absolute  identification.  This  would  not  mean,  however,  that 
we  should  adopt  the  Greek  conceptions  historically  understood,  but 
that  we  may  eliminate  the  triple  distinction  between  the  sensible  and 
the  supersensible,  between  the  supersensible  and  the  superphysical, 
and  between  the  sensible  and  the  superphysical.  I  shall  not  assume  a 
■priori,  however,  that  this  identification  is  the  quassitum  with  which 
we  must  start  our  inquiries,  even  though  the  necessity  of  it  is  a  fact. 
The  investigation  is  too  complicated  to  justify  the  anticipation  of  too 
much  in  our  major  premise.  It  may  be  that  we  should  be  justified  in 
assuming  that  there  is  more  in  the  background  of  "  nature  "  than  ma- 
terial reality,  but  the  most  obtrusive  evidence  of  this  view  may  not 
guarantee  more  than  the  simplest  of  predicates,  and  we  may  require 
more  complicated  evidence  for  those  which  give  refinement  and  moral 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  531 

importance  to  what  is  represented  by  the  idealized  conception  of  God. 
Though  I  mean  to  abolish  that  unfortunate  dualism  between  the  super- 
sensible and  the  superphysical,  as  it  has  been  historically  conceived,  I 
do  not  mean  to  eliminate  the  possible  meaning  which  that  dualism 
represented.  All  that  I  wish  to  do  is  to  obtain  a  point  of  view  by 
which  the  common  conceptions  incident  to  traditionally  antagonistic 
schools  may  be  brought  forward  and  the  follies  of  their  hereditary  re- 
ligious feuds  exposed.  The  only  way  to  do  this  is  to  show  the  elas- 
ticity of  the  conceptions  which  have  served  as  competitors  of  the  re- 
ligious idea  in  the  past  and  which  have  appropriated  its  territory  and 
forced  it  into  a  region  where  it  is  without  the  facts  in  the  support  that 
it  once  had.  Conciliation  is  possible  only  on  the  condition  that  the 
opposition  between  the  two  schools  of  thought  is  not  what  it  seems 
superficially. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  the  conception  of  God  as  a  "  first"  cause. 
I  have  purposely  evaded  this  matter  in  the  discussion  thus  far  because 
the  primary  question  is  whether  there  is  any  cause  of  "  phenomena" 
at  all  and  because  the  cosmological  conception  of  the  problem  mis- 
apprehends its  primary  nature  in  that  the  idea  of  cause  with  which  it 
starts  is  that  of  "  phenomenal"  antecedence  and  consequence  and  tries 
to  get  a  "first"  cause  in  this  way  when  it  is  impossible.  I  have 
already  indicated  how  this  notion  arises,  when  discussing  the  aetiological . 
and  ontological  problems  (p.  37)  that  constitute  the  province  of  nou- 
menology.  I  may  now  refer  to  that  discussion  as  forecasting  the  way 
in  which  we  have  to  view  the  application  of  causality  to  the  problem 
of  God's  existence.  I  do  not  dispute  the  existence  of  a  cosmological 
problem  in  this  connection,  but  it  is  not  the  prior  question  of  specula- 
tion. It  arises  only  when  we  have  a  world  of  at  least  numerically 
different  realities  in  interaction  with  each  other  and  when  we  assume 
the  doctrine  of  inertia  as  applied  to  the  realities  in  this  interaction. 
Outside  these  assumptions  the  conception  of  a  "first"  cause  has  no 
such  claim  to  prior  importance  as  that  which  Kant  gave  it.  The 
existence  of  a  subject  initiating  its  own  actions  is  not  only  prior  to  the 
idea  of  that  involved  in  external  initiation,  but  it  does  not  require  us 
to  assume  the  finitude  of  the  series  of  events  concerned  as  the  condi- 
tion of  obtaining  a  cause  or  "  first "  cause.  It  is  only  when  there  is  a 
plurality  of  realities  of  an  inert  type  and  dependent  upon  external 
action  for  the  occurrence  of  events  in  the  subject  acted  on  that  we  get 
the  idea  of  "  phenomenal"  antecedence  and  consequence  as  represent- 
ing causality.  But  even  when  the  cosmological  conception  was  ac- 
cepted as  temporally  necessary  its  value  lay  wholly  in  the  real  or 


532  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

apparent  denial  of  an  infinite  series  of  phenomena  in  sequential  form. 
Of  course,  if  the  series  is  finite  and  causality  has  to  be  assumed  the 
antecedent  is  not  a  "  phenomenon,"  so  that  the  whole  value  of  the 
cosmological  argument  depended  upon  the  ability  to  prove  that  the 
series  was  finite.  But  in  addition  to  the  difficulty  of  sustaining  this 
finitude  of  the  series,  those  who  so  strenuously  urged  the  necessity  of 
a  cosmological  initium  for  the  cosmic  order  conceded  unwittingly  one 
half  of  their  opponent's  view,  and  this  concession  was  either  that  of  a 
subsequent  eternity  of  what  was  once  created,  or  the  self -persistence 
of  what  was  initiated  until  another  act  of  will  terminated  the  creation 
dependent  upon  this  will.  It  was  readily  granted  by  the  theist  and 
the  spiritualist  that  when  a  cause  once  acted  to  initiate  an  event  the 
subsequent  events  in  the  same  series  were  the  effect  of  this  antecedent 
as  a  cause.  In  other  words  an  event  once  in  existence  as  an  effect 
became  a  cause  and  so  on  indefinitely,  all  but  the  first  member  in  the 
series  representing  what  is  known  as  a  "  mechanical "  cause  and 
effect,  which  is  interpreted  as  not  involving  anything  new  in  exist- 
ence as  the  first  term  is  supposed  to  do.  This  assumption  was  sup- 
ported by  all  those  facts  that  are  represented  in  the  mechanical  trans- 
mission of  energy  and  so  by  the  doctrine  of  its  conservation.  But  it 
was  not  true  for  all  those  aspects  of  the  members  in  the  series  that 
embodied  actual  changes  of  actual  mode,  and  most  especially  all  the 
qualitative  changes  not  materially  traceable  to  the  nature  of  the  ante- 
cedent. But  in  spite  of  this  false  assumption  the  doctrine  lived  on  to 
embarrass  the  theist  the  moment  that  any  serious  doubt  was  raised 
against  the  finite  character  of  the  series.  What  should  have  been  done 
was  to  have  shown  that  the  whole  case  was  independent  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  series  was  finite  or  infinite,  and  that  there  was  no 
such  qualitative  identity  and  freedom  from  initial  change  in  the  system 
as  the  mechanical  theory  conceived  it.  Besides  the  abstraction  involved 
in  conceiving  what  the  identity  is  throughout  the  series  leaves  nothing 
but  the  name  of  causality  for  describing  the  case  without  its  content. 
The  primary  conception  of  causality,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out, 
is  modal  change  of  a  subject,  not  the  initiation  of  a  mechanical  series 
in  a  cosmic  system  of  units  or  different  centers  of  reference.  The 
first  appeal  for  explanation  is  to  the  subject  in  which  an  event  occurs 
and  we  should  never  transcend  it  except  for  such  reasons  as  are  implied 
in  the  inertia  of  the  subject  in  action.  In  fact  there  are  only  two  con- 
siderations that  will  ever  justify  this  transcendency,  and  they  can  be 
reduced  to  one.  They  are  the  incapacity  of  the  subject  to  explain  certain 
facts  and  the  doctrine  of  inertia.     The  former  reason  is  nothing  more 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  533 

chan  what  is  implied  by  inertia,  as  there  can  be  no  way  of  proving 
foreign  causality  without  the  assumption  of  inertia.  The  existence  of 
inertia  defines  the  limits  of  subjective  capacity  and  if  it  is  made  uni- 
versal all  "phenomena"  in  a  subject  must  seek  their  cause  in  an 
external  source.  If  the  fact  external  to  the  subject  in  any  given  case  and 
considered  as  a  cause,  itself  be  an  effect,  and  inertia  again  be  assumed, 
the  further  cause  must  be  transferred  again  to  another  foreign  center 
of  reference  and  so  on  indefinitely,  as  long  as  any  given  antecedent  is 
conceived  as  an  effect  or  "  phenomenon"  as  well  as  a  condition  of  its 
consequent.  We  should  have  an  infinite  progressus  of  events  as.  well 
as  an  infinite  regressus  of  them.  Now  neither  a  regressus  nor  a  pro- 
gressus of  events  could  take  place,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  inertia, 
unless  we  have  a  system  of  interacting  centers  of  reference,  and  even 
with  these  absolutely  no  qualitative  changes  in  the  transmission  of 
energy  or  interaction  could  occur  if  inertia  were  absolute.  The  fact 
of  change  in  the  series  shows  that  we  have  to  deal  with  a  subjective 
causality  that  is  distinct  from  the  cosmological  conception  of  serial 
relations. 

It  is  in  the  conception  of  inertia  and  of  nothing  but  a  serial  relation 
between  events  that  the  cosmological  argument  for  the  existence  of 
God  arises,  and  its  capacity  for  giving  trouble  to  the  theistic  view  lies 
precisely  in  the  difficulty  of  finding  the  beginning  which  the  argument  is 
supposed  to  require.  Its  finity  would,  of  course,  imply  a  cause  differ- 
ent from  the  members  of  the  series,  but  with  the  conception  of  "  phe- 
nomenal "  causation  it  was  impossible  to  make  clear  this  finity.  Both 
the  theist  and  the  sceptic  assumed  that  causality  primarily  represented 
antecedence  and  consequence  between  "  phenomena,"  that  is,  both  a 
distinction  in  time  and  transcendency  of  origin  for  the  effect.  But  the 
theist  maintained,  and  according  to  the  historical  conception  of  his 
theory  must  maintain,  that  the  series  has  an  absolute  beginning,  while 
the  sceptic  either  denies  this  or  finds  no  satisfactory  evidence  for  its 
being  a  fact.  It  is  clear  that  the  theist's  conception,  in  spite  of  the 
concession  to  the  idea  of  "  phenomenal  causation,"  assumes  that  the 
ultimate  cause  of  the  series  is  non-phenomenal,  while  the  sceptic's  im- 
plies that  it  is  phenomenal  and  hence  that  the  series  has  no  beginning. 
But  we  may  ask  the  theist  why  he  accepts  antecedence  and  conse- 
quence as  the  norm  of  causality  when  he  transcends  the  "phenom- 
enal" for  his  ultimate,  and  the  sceptic  why  he  supposes  any  cause  at 
all  when  he  assumes  the  infinity  of  the  series.  Apparently,  therefore, 
the  controversy  is  carried  on  under  a  misunderstanding.  The  two 
parties  have  not  altogether  the  same  conception  of  cause  throughout 


534  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  problem.  They  agree  only  in  so  far  as  they  accept  a  phenomenal 
series  of  antecedents  and  consequents,  and  separate  when  the  assump- 
tion of  one  that  the  series  is  finite  necessitates  the  transphenomenal 
that  may  not  be  antecedent  at  all  and  when  the  assumption  of  the  other 
would  not  permit  any  antecedent  to  the  infinite  series  and  hence  no 
ultimate  cause.  The  theist's  assumption  that  his  "  first"  cause  is  only 
at  the  beginning  of  the  series  instead  of  continuous  or  coterminous 
with  it,  that  is,  the  initium  of  each  member  in  it  involving  a  change, 
exposed  him  to  that  conception  of  the  series  in  all  but  its  initial  cause 
which  places  him  at  the  mercy  of  his  critic.  His  theism  is  that  of 
Aristotle,  if  we  may  call  Aristotle's  conception  by  that  name,  since  his 
first  cause  or  prime  mover  merely  started  things  which  went  on  after- 
ward of  their  own  momentum  or  forces.  Consequently,  to  the  sceptic, 
it  appeared  a  rather  a  priori  position  to  determine  where  and  when 
the  series  began,  and  the  theist  has  to  rely  tipon  the  assumption  that 
the  infinite  is  never  a  sum  of  the  finite  to  assure  himself  of  any  "  phe- 
nomenal"  beginning  at  all.  The  fact  that  we  cannot  show  any  defi- 
nite evidence  that  the  beginning  occurred  at  any  specific  point  and  that 
the  "  empirical "  law  of  causality,  that  of  "phenomenal "  antecedence 
and  consequence,  involves  the  denial  of  any  beginning,  seems  to  elimi- 
nate the  very  condition  on  which  a  "  first"  cause  is  demanded,  namely, 
that  the  series  shall  begin  without  an  antecedent  "  phenomenon." 

The  whole  trouble  is  due  to  confusion  in  the  conception  of  causal- 
ity. The  theist  starts  with  the  admission  that,  in  the  finite  series 
which  he  assumes,  the  cause  is  an  antecedent  "phenomenon"  in  all 
but  the  cause  of  the  first  member  of  the  series  where  he  cannot  sup- 
pose it  to  be  a  "  phenomenon."  It  may  be  either  an  antecedent,  that 
is,  a  temporal  prius,  or  a  coexistent  reality  not  antecedent  at  all.  He 
thus  shows  that  his  conception  of  a  "first"  cause  is  quite  different 
from  any  event  in  the  series.  Starting  with  a  "  phenomenal  "  concep- 
tion of  cause,  though  it  be  only  hypothetical,  he  has  to  end  with  the 
transphenomenal  conception  of  it  and  makes  himself  independent  of  the 
idea  of  antecedent  "  phenomena."  There  is  nothing  logically  illegiti- 
mate in  this  as  long  as  the  idea  of  causality  is  assumed  and  the  finite 
nature  of  the  series  admitted  to  be  a  fact.  But  there  is  a  tendency  in 
the  concession,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  causal  agency  in  the 
series  is  not  the  same  as  at  the  beginning,  to  forget  the  causal  agency 
necessitated  by  changes  in  the  series.  His  opponent  starts  with  the 
conception  of  "  phenomenal "  antecedence  for  cause  and  with  the  sup- 
position that  the  series  is  or  may  be  infinite  ends  with  a  situation  in 
which  he  can  have  no  "first"  cause  as  antecedent  and  must  either 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  535 

forego  all  causes  or  accept  the  doctrine  which  contradicts  the  assump- 
tion with  which  he  started,  namely,  that  a  cause  must  be  an  antecedent 
"  phenomenon."  Both,  however,  it  will  thus  be  seen,  if  they  are  to  use 
the  conception  of  cause  at  all,  have  to  end  with  the  notion  that  it  is 
transphenomenal  in  its  primary  and  most  important  sense. 

It  will  be  important  at  this  point  to  present  some  proof  that  the 
primary  conception  of  causality  must  be  non-phenomenal.  I  start 
with  the  simple  fact  that  the  demand  for  a  cause  of  any  kind  is  created 
by  the  exigency  that  there  are  events  or  "  phenomena."  That  is  to 
say,  when  we  recognize  that  a  given  fact  is  an  event  we  seek  a  cause 
for  it.  Otherwise  there  is  no  need  for  inquiry.  Now  what  is  an 
event?  It  is  a  fact  which  has  a  beginning  in  time.  The  very  term 
implies  this.  We  must  suppose  a  beginning  in  time  for  all  events 
whatever,  or  the  facts  cannot  be  called  events.  It  is  on  the  ground  of 
this  beginning  in  time  that  we  look  for  a  cause.  Now  the  cause  must 
be  either  an  antecedent  event  or  something  which  is  not  an  event.  If 
an  event  is  caused  by  an  antecedent  event  there  must  be  a  series  of 
such  events  more  or  less  comprehensive.  This  series  must  be  either 
finite  or  infinite.  If  the  series  be  finite  it  has  a  beginning  in  time  and 
the  first  event  in  it  must  be  caused  by  something  not  an  event,  whether 
antecedent  or  coexistent  with  it.  Otherwise  the  series  would  not  be 
finite  but  infinite.  Its  finity  and  its  caused  nature,  by  supposition,  as- 
sume that  the  cause  is  not  an  event,  unless  causality  be  denied  for  the 
first  member  of  the  series,  a  position  dispensing  with  the  necessity  of 
causality  elsewhere,  and  contradicting  the  assumption  with  which  we 
started.  But  whether  antecedent  or  coexistent  it  would  not  be  an 
event.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  series  be  infinite,  it  has  no  beginning 
in  time  and  there  is  neither  a  "  first "  event  in  the  series  nor  an  ante- 
cedent event  for  its  cause.  An  infinite  series  cannot  have  an  ante- 
cedent event  or  antecedent  of  any  kind  for  its  cause,  but  must  be  con- 
ditioned by  something  which  is  not  an  event,  if  it  is  caused  at  all.  I 
do  not  require  to  say  anything  about  the  impossibility  of  an  infinite 
series  composed  of  finite  units  or  events.  This  may  be  assumed  as  a 
vantage  ground  for  discussion  to  prove  that  the  series  must  be  finite, 
and  so  caused  by  something  transcending  it  and  not  an  event,  the  same 
conclusion  being  true  if  it  is  infinite  and  causality  is  supposed  at  all. 
But  we  can  assume  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  an  infinite  series  is 
possible  in  order  to  measure  it  against  the  conception  of  causality. 
We  must  remark,  however,  that,  if  we  apply  the  category  of  cause  to 
it,  the  supposition  of  this  causality  will  be  possible  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  not  an  event  or  an  antecedent  "phenomenon,"  because,  4s  re- 


536  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

marked  above,  there  can  be  no  antecedent  to  that  which  has  no  be- 
ginning in  time.  Hence  the  series,  whether  finite  or  infinite,  cannot 
have  an  event  for  its  cause.  We  may  maintain  that  it  has  no  cause,  if 
we  so  wish  to  believe  or  assert.  But  this  would  be  to  surrender  the 
rationality  of  all  science  that  insists  upon  the  recognition  of  causality. 
Its  search  is  not  exhausted  with  mere  coexistence  and  sequence,  though 
this  has  to  be  the  first  step  in  the  ascertainment  of  cosmological  causes. 
The  extent  of  the  connection  is  the  evidence  of  its  necessity,  which 
even  the  scientific  man  seeks  as  well  as  its  factual  character.  The  de- 
nial of  any  causality  whatever  other  than  the  uniformity  of  coexistence 
and  sequence  may  be  correct,  in  so  far  as  we  are  at  present  concerned, 
but  human  nature  is  hardly  constituted  so  as  to  take  a  course  like  that. 
In  fact,  events  have  no  meaning  unless  they  are  interpreted  or  ex- 
plained by  causes,  whether  these  events  be  treated  individually  or  col- 
lectively. A  finite  series  of  events  does  not  differ  essentially  from  an 
individual  event,  in  so  far  as  it  represents  a  beginning  in  time,  as  this 
is  the  characteristic  that  brings  it  under  explanation  by  causality.  We 
are,  therefore,  not  likely  to  escape  the  admission  that  there  is  a  cause 
of  some  kind  which  will  be  more  than  the  spontaneous  origin  of  events 
and  which  will  be  a  subject  or  ground  of  them.  The  only  question 
that  remains  after  that  is  whether  that  cause  is  ultimately  an  event. 
We  have  found  that  it  cannot  be  such  in  either  a  finite  or  infinite  series, 
and  this  conclusion  means  that  the  primary  notion  of  cause  is  not  that 
of  a  "  first  "  event,  nor  even  necessarily  a  "  first "  or  temporally  ante- 
cedent reality  not  an  event,  though  this  might  be  the  fact,  but  of  a 
reality,  whether  antecedent  or  coexistent  with  its  acts,  which  is  not 
broken  up  into  units  of  time. 

I  have  assumed,  as  the  student  usually  does,  that  an  infinite  series 
may  be  caused.  But  this  assumption  requires  qualification.  That 
which  has  no  beginning  in  time  can  have  no  temporal  or  antecedent 
cause,  as  we  have  already  seen,  since  we  never  seek  for  a  cause  except 
for  that  which  begins  in  time.  The  advocate  of  cosmological  infini- 
tude in  the  temporal  series  forgets  that  this  idea  contradicts  his  con- 
ception of  cause  as  an  antecedent  "  phenomenon"  which  is  impossible 
in  any  such  series  as  a  whole  and  it  is  the  whole  about  which  he 
speaks.  Otherwise  he  has  no  infinite  series.  His  cause,  if  cause 
there  be,  must  be  coincident  with  the  facts  that  he  possesses,  an  im- 
manent principle  inhabiting,  not  excluded  from  the  "phenomena" 
that  come  to  him  for  explanation.  In  no  case  can  we  escape  the  sup- 
position of  an  Absolute,  whether  we  choose  to  regard  it  as  noumenal 
•or  "  phenomenal,"  while  any  recognition  of  causality  at  all  will  drive 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  537 

us  into  the  noumenal.  This  absolute  is  forced  upon  us,  because  a 
finite  series  must  be  originated  by  that  which  is  not  an  event,  as  a  con- 
dition of  being  a  finite  series  of  events  or  effects  at  all,  and  because  an 
infinite  series  can  have  no  antecedent  in  time.  This,  of  course,  re- 
sults in  the  conclusion  that  a  true  primary  cause  is  not  an  antecedent 
phenomenon,  but  a  subject  which,  whether  coincident  or  antecedent 
to  its  attributes  and  functional  action,  is  the  proper  center  of  reference 
for  all  phenomena  and  their  true  cause,  the  temporal  relation  between 
"phenomena"  being  only  the  index  of  the  law  of  action,  not  its 
efficient  determinant. 

Another  matter  in  this  question  should  be  remarked.  It  is  com- 
monly conceded,  where  there  is  any  serious  reflection  on  the  problem, 
that  no  sum  of  the  finite  can  ever  constitute  the  infinite.  This  is  un- 
questionably true,  whenever  the  infinite  is  conceived  as  qualitatively 
different  from  the  finite.  We  can  have  no  denomination  in  the  sum 
which  is  not  in  the  units  or  parts.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  same 
will  hold  true  when  the  difference  is  supposed  to  be  only  quantitative. 
Assuming  the  fact  in  either  case,  we  should  have  definite  proof  that  the 
cosmological  series  is  finite  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  it  as 
infinite.  With  this  result  Kant's  antinomy  would  be  an  illusion.  But 
it  is  not  necessary  to  push  a  difficulty  here  in  the  form  that  the  sum  of 
the  finite  can  never  produce  the  infinite,  as  the  thought  can  be  best 
expressed  by  showing  that  the  talk  of  an  infinite  series  confuses  the  dis- 
tinct notions  of  infinite  time  and  infinite  number.  Infinite  time  is 
homogeneous  and  continuous,  and  so  without  beginning.  Infinite 
number  represents  the  heterogeneous  and  the  discrete,  or  quantities  as 
units.  A  series  of  events,  whether  finite  or  infinite,  represents  two 
things,  the  time  element  and  the  number  element.  When  it  is  con- 
ceived as  finite  both  the  collective  series  and  the  individual  members 
represent  a  beginning  in  time.  But  in  the  so-called  infinite  series,  the 
collective  whole  has  no  beginning,  while  each  member  has  a  beginning. 
In  the  former  case  we  can  suppose  both  to  be  temporally  caused ;  in 
the  latter  the  whole  has  no  antecedent  cause,  while  all  the  individual 
members  conceivably  have  an  antecedent  cause  and  admittedly  have  a 
coexistent  cause,  if  cause  at  all,  and  if  not  caused  by  an  antecedent.  It 
is  thus  the  time  element  that  is  infinite  and  not  caused  while  the  fact 
of  change  always  calls  for  it,  no  matter  how  we  conceive  the  series. 

Having  shown  that  the  "  first"  cause  is  always  transphenomenal, 
it  is  incumbent  upon  me  to  ask  why  it  is  so  universal  to  regard  caus- 
ality as  necessarily  implying  antecedence  and  consequence.  The  an- 
swer to  this  question  is  that  this  conception  is  the  only  form  in  which 


53S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

it  can  ever  present  sensible  evidence  of  a  relation  implying  the  differ- 
ence of  some  kind  which  is  necessary  in  the  idea  of  cause  and  effect, 
though  it  may  not  be  one  of  time  and  space.  There  would  be  no  way 
of  distinguishing  between  cause  and  effect  concretely  if  it  were  not  for 
the  fact  that,  in  a  cosmological  system,  the  distinction  between  centers 
of  reference  and  between  their  actions  and  reactions  on  each  other  co- 
incided with  the  idea  of  cause  and  effect  sufficiently  to  make  phenom- 
enal relations  in  time  an  index  of  a  fact  which  is  not  necessarily  con- 
stituted by  antecedence  and  consequence  at  all.  In  the  interaction 
between  two  subjects,  say  the  impact  of  two  balls,  we  ascribe  the 
causal  act  to  the  moving  subject  whose  action  is  perceptibly  antecedent 
to  the  motion  in  the  subject  acted  on.  The  antecedent  subject  is  the 
cause  and  it  is  distinct  from  the  subject  acted  on  in  space,  while  the 
motion  in  one  is  antecedent  in  time  to  that  of  the  other.  Hence  the 
evidence  of  what  the  cause  is  must  be  found  in  antecedence  of  the 
action  of  the  impelling  subject  with  the  assumption  of  inertia  in  the 
affected  subject.  But,  in  fact,  the  causal  action  does  not  involve  ante- 
cedence at  all.  The  efficiency  occurs  coexistently  with  the  effect  in  the 
subject  acted  on.  But  if  it  were  not  for  the  assumption  of  inertia  and 
the  time  relation  of  phenomena  uniformly  associated  the  cause  could 
always  be  placed  in  the  subject  affected  as  well  as  in  the  subject  sup- 
posed to  influence  the  result.  However,  the  cause  in  any  case  is  a 
subject  acting  and  the  events  indicating  it  are,  in  a  cosmological 
system,  antecedent  and  consequent.  Moreover,  in  the  communication 
of  knowledge  regarding  causes  it  is  necessary  to  have  experiential 
data  for  making  intelligible  the  causal  relation  implying  a  distinction 
not  clearly  evident  in  the  unity  of  time  and  space,  and  the  only  condi- 
tion under  which  "  empirical"  evidence  of  such  a  relation  can  appear 
is  in  the  fact  of  phenomenal  antecedence  and  consequence.  This  will 
demand  an  independence  of  the  subjects  even  though  the  moment  in 
which  the  actual  causal  agency  produces  its  effect  represents  a  coinci- 
dence as  that  between  subject  and  function.  This  is  only  to  say  that 
the  ratio  cognoscendi,  not  the  ratio  essendi,  of  causality  is  phenome- 
nal antecedence  and  consequence  associated  with  the  assumption  of 
inertia.  On  any  other  view  of  the  case  it  will  not  apply.  Hence  we 
must  always  expect  the  representative  formula  for  causality  to  take  the 
"empirical"  form  and  to  expose  us  to  the  cosmological  illusion,  un- 
less we  can  free  ourselves  from  it  by  proper  reflection. 

Assuming  then  the  transphenomenal  nature  of  causality  in  its  first 
power  and  its  ultimate  independence  of  antecedence  and  consequence 
in  time,  we  are  prepared  to  apply  the  conception  to  the  problem  of  the 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  539 

existence  of  God.  I  shall  have  a  threefold  argument  which  I  shall 
distinguish  by  the  etiological,  the  ontological,  and  teleological.  What 
I  have  called  the  ontological  is  distinct  from  the  old  one  by  that  name 
and  is  determined  by  the  significance  of  that  term  in  the  classification 
of  the  sciences.  But  in  the  application  of  these  methods  I  must  em- 
phasize two  very  important  considerations.  The  first  is  that  they  do 
not  severally  or  distinctly  illustrate  or  prove  the  same  thing.  The 
aetiological  argument  will  prove  nothing  more  than  the  fact  of  an  Abso- 
lute and  this  without  regard  to  the  question  whether  it  is  plural  or  singu- 
lar, matter  or  spirit.  No  characteristics  but  its  causal  function  or  com- 
plimentary relation  to  "  phenomena  "  can  be  established  by  this  method. 
The  ontological  argument  is  designed  to  determine  its  unity  and  its 
nature.  The  teleological  argument  is  a  sort  of  combined  aetiological  and 
ontological  process,  though  applicable  only  to  cosmological  relations 
for  determining  the  conjunction  of  intelligence  and  moral  purpose  in 
connection  with  efficient  causality.  The  second  consideration  is  that  the 
argument  shall  be  conducted  on  the  assumption  that  there  can  be  and 
ought  to  be  a  reconciliation  between  the  Greek  supersensible  and  the 
Christian  superphysical  realities.  Such  an  assumption  will  not  readily 
commend  itself  to  minds  bred  in  the  dualism  which  has  possessed 
civilization  for  so  many  centuries  and  which  has  embodied  itself  in  the 
more  or  less  petrified  antithesis  between  religion  and  science,  or  God 
and  nature.  But  whether  it  commends  itself  or  not,  I  am  convinced 
that  there  is  no  salvation  for  the  religious  sentiment  in  any  other  re- 
source. The  antagonisms  that  have  been  cultivated  between  the  poetic 
and  the  scientific  views  of  the  cosmos  have  defined  themselves  so 
clearly  and  worked  out  their  embodiment  in  language  with  such  stub- 
born and  consistently  conflicting  ideas  and  associations,  that  the  revo- 
lution must  be  great  which  will  bring  them  into  harmony.  Neverthe- 
less I  am  firmly  convinced  that,  unless  philosophy  can  succeed  in 
uniting  divorced  tendencies  in  a  way  to  preserve  the  best  elements  of 
both,  there  can  be  nothing  but  a  wasteful  controversy  between  truth  and 
beauty,  between  a  passionless  study  of  nature  and  a  sentimental  wor- 
ship of  the  unreal.  The  antagonism  was  rational  enough  in  the  last 
days  of  Greece  and  Rome  with  the  rise  of  Christianity  when  material- 
ism was  sensuous  and  immoral  and  the  religious  consciousness  was 
endeavoring  to  revive  the  "spiritual  "  ideals  of  Plato  and  Judaism.  It 
was  also  excusable  as  long  as  the  assumption  prevailed  that  the  whole 
cosmos,  sensible  and  supersensible,  was  ephemeral,  so  that  the  spirit- 
ual had  to  be  sought  in  the  immaterial.  But  after  science  has  discov- 
ered a  whole  infinite  universe  of  supersensible  forces  and  reduced  the 


54°  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

se  le  cosmos  to  an  insignificant  affair,  while  its  conception  of  mat- 
ter can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  spirit,  and  when  ethics  has  meas- 
urably triumphed  over  the  purely  sensuous  life,  there  is  less  reason, 
and  perhaps  none  at  all,  for  persisting  in  holding  the  conception  of 
God,  so  far  apart  from  our  extremely  etherealized  ideas  of  matter, 
especially  that  the  progress  of  knowledge  forces  more  and  more  upon 
our  convictions  the  essential  unity  of  things  which  was  not  so  apparent 
to  antiquity  as  to  us,  though  it  was  as  firmly  believed.  In  the  atomic 
doctrine  of  the  ancients  there  was,  of  course,  little  to  make  the  unity 
of  the  cosmos  intelligible,  and  it  was  the  demand  for  this  unity  and  in- 
telligibility that  led  to  the  postulation  of  the  divine  being  to  account 
for  facts  not  naturally  traceable  in  the  action  of  the  elements.  But  in 
modern  times  we  have  very  much  simplified  the  atomic  theory  by  re- 
ducing the  elements  to  a  finite  number,  some  seventy  or  more,  and  by 
the  discovery  that  possibly  these  are  reducible  to  one  form  of  energy. 
The  ancient  doctrine  had  no  means  to  account  for  their  composition 
but  a  mechanical  system,  while  the  multiplicity  of  the  elements  allowed 
for  an  number  of  combinations  suitable  to  qualitative  differences  in 
the  compounds.  But  the  modern  theory  not  only  assumes  qualitative 
differences  in  the  atoms,  except  a  recent  view,  and  owing  to  their 
limited  number  has  to  endow  them  with  internal  forces  that  take  the 
purely  mechanical  conception  of  composition  out  of  the  field  of  ex- 
planation or  limits  its  application.  But  the  tendency  to  either  accept 
the  ether  as  the  ultimate  form  of  energy,  or  to  reduce  all  atomic  ele- 
ments to  one  form  of  reality  far  more  supersensible  than  the  Greeks' 
conception  of  non-sensible  matter,  provides  in  the*  field  of  natural 
science  that  unity  of  regulative  agency  in  the  cosmos  which  monothe- 
ism afforded  when  reducing  the  polytheistic  stage  of  reflection  to 
order,  and  consequently,  with  the  law  of  parsimony  operative  on 
human  thought,  brings  every  conception  of  God  that  is  dualistically 
transcendental  into  dangerous  competition  with  that  unity  of  forces 
wh  :h  offers  so  attractive  a  solution  to  the  problem  of  cosmic  com- 
plexities having  no  superficial  evidences  of  personality  at  its  basis.  The 
choice  in  such  a  situation  must  be  between  the  abandonment  of  the 
divine  and  its  unification  with  cosmic  energy. 

This  position  is  reinforced  by  the  very  important  consideration  that 
the  conception  of  matter  has  become  so  elastic  and  refined  that  it  is 
impossible  to  distinguish  it  from  the  ancient  conception  of  spirit.  I 
have  already  called  attention  to  this  fact  when  discussing  spiritualism, 
and  the  fact  must  come  up  here  again  for  further  remark.  If  we 
limited  the  term  "  matter"  entirely  to  the  sensible  world,  to  what  we 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  541 

actually  see  and  touch,  with  the  limited  capacities  represented  fcj  Jhe 
properties  so  manifested,  we  should  find  it  necessary,  like  the  old 
Greeks  in  the  first  stages  of  their  reflection,  to  call  the  supersensible 
reality  "ether,"  as  a  means  of  distinguishing  the  finer  elements  of 
nature  from  the  coarser.  It  was  a  long  time  before  Greco-Roman 
thought  could  bring  itself  finally  to  regard  even  the  air  as  matter. 
Students  of  philosophy  will  recall  the  elaborate  arguments  of  Lucretius 
to  prove  that  the  air  is  matter  and  not  some  form  of  ethereal  substance. 
But  even  the  materialists  did  not  venture  upon  such  a  conclusion  until 
they  had  already  become  familiar  with  the  conception  of  supersensible 
matter  quite  as  refined  as  the  abounding  "ether"  and  probably  dis- 
tinguished from  it  only  by  its  tendency  to  gravity.  The  "  ether,"  how- 
ever, was  soon  abandoned  after  all  reality  was  reduced  to  matter  and 
the  void,  and  all  supersensible  reality  classified  also  with  matter.  The 
monistic  tendency  was  too  strong  to  tolerate  a  multiplicity  of  elements 
qualitatively  different  from  each  other.  The  reduction  of  the  air  and 
all  supersensible  or  ethereal  reality  to  matter,  whether  of  the  atomic  or 
non-atomic  form,  was  a  unification  of  multiple  forces,  even  t'fough  it 
was  obtained  by  an  extension  of  the  meaning  of  the  term  ' '  matter  " 
where  it  was  supposed  that  we  were  exorcising  spirit  while  in  fact  we 
were  but  refining  matter  to  include  it.  This  movement  of  Greek 
thought  was  not  conscious  of  itself  except  in  Plato  where  the  philo- 
sophic and  the  poetic  instinct  joined  hands  to  take  an  ethereal  flight  on 
the  wings  of  fancy  and  hope.  Plato  was  quite  willing  to  limit  the 
conception  of  "matter"  to  the  sensible  and  the  ephemeral  world,  but 
a  consideration  which  must  always  operate  with  the  human  mind 
prompted  later  philosophers  to  the  extension  of  the  term  "  matter"  to 
cover  all  the  facts  of  human  experience.  This  was  the  instinct  for 
unity  together  with  the  habit  of  naming  a  reality  in  terms  of  what  it  is 
supposed  to  do  rather  than  in  terms  of  what  we  imagine  is  desirable. 
I  have  already  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  ultimately  we  know  the 
"nature  "of  a  thing  by  what  it  does,  and  that  terms  denoting  Sub- 
stance will  always  be  chosen  to  name  the  background  of  phenomena 
even  though  the  reality  so  named  has  to  be  distinguished  by  antithesis 
with  its  effect.  The  moment  that  the  sensible  world,  which  the  naive 
understanding  had  taken  for  a  fixed  substance,  became  a  mere  "  phe- 
nomenon," the  modal  appearance  of  a  supersensible  reality,  it  had  to 
be  conceived  as  too  closely  related  to  its  cause  to  receive  any  other 
name  for  it  than  the  current  name,  and  hence  "  matter"  from  being  a 
sensible  fact  alone  came  to  be  a  name  for  the  supersensible  condition 
of  a  reality  that  could  at  any  time  manifest  itself  to  the  senses.     We  at 


542  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

first  name  a  thing  for  what  it  z's,  and  when  we  discover  that  we  either 
do  not  know  what  it  is  at  all,  or  know  what  it  is  only  in  what  it  does, 
we  still  continue  to  name  it  as  before,  though  the  new  position  involves 
an  antithesis  in  conception  of  that  which  it  was  at  first.  In  becoming 
thus  generalized  the  term  "matter"  is  exceedingly  equivocal,  now 
identical  with  what  we  see  and  feel  and  now  identical  with  what  can 
be  neither  seen  nor  felt,  a  term  equally  adapted  to  matter  or  spirit. 
Before  this  conception  obtained  a  footing  there  was  but  one  thing  to 
know  and  name,  and  this  was  the  sensible  world.  But  the  discovery 
that  there  was  a  "phenomenal"  world  attached,  if  that  conception  is 
permissible,  to  some  unchangeable  reality,  led  to  that  double-faced 
unity  which  gave  the  same  name  to  both  aspects  of  it  while  their 
natures  were  conceived  more  or  less  in  an  antithesis.  Plato  saw  this 
clearly  when  he  endeavored  to  apply  the  notion  of  "  matter"  to  the 
sensible  world  and  that  of  "  idea  "  to  the  supersensible  world,  while 
the  materialists  adopted  "matter"  for  the  supersensible  without  any 
consciousness  of  the  change  of  conceptions  involved  in  their  action. 

It  was  impossible  thus  to  generalize  the  term  without  one  of  two 
consequences,  either  the  weakening  of  the  evidences  for  the  immaterial 
or  the  association  of  the  mechanical  idea  with  the  supersensible.  In 
this  wider  generalization  of  the  term  it  must  represent  that  generic 
meaning  which  covers  the  qualities  of  both  a  sensible  and  a  supersen- 
sible reality,  with  all  the  abstraction  that  this  involves,  as  it  must  apply 
to  facts  conceived  in  an  antithesis.  If  applied  only  to  the  supersen- 
sible, it  may  be  less  confusing  but  none  the  less  distinguished  from  the 
sensible  world.  In  either  of  them  it  takes  on  all  the  negative  coloring 
that  would  be  expected  from  a  conception  that  opposed  what  had 
passed  for  gross  matter,  even  though  the  associations  and  implications 
of  the  latter  have  not  been  wholly  escaped.  It  was  a  misfortune  for 
human  thought  that  this  refined  conception  of  "  matter  "  was  lost  in  the 
conflict  which  perpetuated  the  hostility  between  materialism  and  spirit- 
ualism ;  for  there  is  the  possibility  of  conciliation  as  long  as  the  mys- 
terious plasticity  and  power  of  "  matter"  approaches  all  the  ethereal 
images  of  the  divine,  which  are  hardly  more  negative  in  relation  to 
sensible  matter  than  is  the  supersensible  of  materialism.  It  was  only 
the  coldly  mechanical  view  of  things  which  still  clung  to  this  concep- 
tion of  matter  after  it  had  been  etherealized  that  drove  the  human  mind 
into  the  immaterial  as  a  resource  for  a  personal  view  of  reality  at  the 
basis  of  things  for  the  sustentation  of  its  hopes  and  ideals  that  it 
thought  inconsistent  with  "  nature,"  and  it  has  persistently  held  to  that 
policy  amid  every  change  in  the  conception  of  "  matter"  and  all  evi- 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  543 

dence  of  a  unity  of  things  not  easily  discoverable  in  dualism.  But 
there  has  been  no  sufficient  reason  for  this  persistence  after  the  enemy 
had  conceded  half  the  field  of  philosophy  to  the  claims  that  placed  the 
foundation  of  things  beyond  the  reach  of  sense. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  rehearse  at  length  the  motives  that  prevented 
the  unification  of  Greek  and  Christian  conceptions  after  the  discovery 
of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  motion.  They  are  all  summa- 
rized in  the  petrifaction  of  religious  ideas  into  abstract  and  anthropo- 
morphic formulas  which  permitted  no  such  elasticity  of  conception  and 
nature  as  the  propositions  of  physical  science.  Ancient  thought  could 
most  easily  have  made  concessions  from  the  side  of  religion  because 
there  was  so  much  mystery  left  in  "nature,"  after  all  the  unity  which 
philosophy  had  given  it,  that  men  should  still  resort  to  the  supersen- 
sible as  they  resorted  to  the  superphysical  for  ultimate  explanation. 

Das  Wunder  ist  des  Glaubens  liebstes  Kind. 

"Miracles  are  faith's  favorite  child."  The  idea  of  the  mechanical 
seemed  to  have  its  limitations,  as  clearly  shown  in  the  slow  death  of 
the  belief  that  the  stars  were  divine.  But  modern  science,  while  it  has 
still  more  refined  the  conception  of  matter  than  the  Greeks  did,  even 
to  the  extent  of  describing  the  ether  in  its  terms,  has,  under  the  aegis 
of  Copernican  astronomy,  Newtonian  gravitation,  and  Darwinian  evo- 
lution, reduced  the  totality  of  existence  to  such  a  mechanical  concep- 
tion, two  of  them  doing  for  space  what  the  third  does  for  time,  that 
the  concessions  which  may  be  made  to  the  ideas  of  the  immaterial  still 
remain  free  from  the  evidence  of  intelligent  purpose  which  is  so  essen- 
tial and  insistent  in  the  conception  of  God.  In  spite  of  its  representa- 
tion of  God  as  unchangeable  and  incomprehensible  religion  has  never 
been  properly  willing  to  admit  the  idea  of  mechanical  action  into  its 
conception  of  the  divine  and  consequently  it  has  always  been  fright- 
ened at  the  uniformity  of  nature  as  if  its  life  depended  on  mystery  in- 
stead of  faith  and  confidence  in  the  cosmic  order.  All  that  it  needs  to 
learn  is  that  intelligence  is  quite  as  compatible  with  the  background 
of  the  "  phenomenal "  world  as  it  is  with  materially  organized  beings, 
and  having  seen  this,  to  adjust  its  ethical  life  to  the  present  situation  and 
leave  the  outcome  to  the  future.  It  is  clear  that  the  amazing  discov- 
eries of  recent  science  and  metaphysical  speculations  in  the  field  of 
physical  science  in  regard  to  the  properties  of  "  matter,"  the  con- 
sciousness that  the  theories  of  it  must  be  revised  and  modified,  and  the 
hypothesis  of  ether  with  properties  as  far  beyond  those  of  ordinary 
"matter"  as  any  theological    "spirit"  could  be,  are  considerations 


544  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  leave  only  one  thing  for  poetry  and  religion  to  do,  and  this  is  to 
emancipate  themselves  from  the  associations  that  haunt  mechanical 
formulas  and  seriously  ask  whether  all  this  supersensuous  background 
of  the  universe,  with  its  display  of  forces,  almost  as  different  from  the 
simplest  conception  of  the  mechanical  as  an  orderly  purpose,  might  not 
be  qualified  by  functions  that  merely  conceal  intelligence  of  a  very 
comprehensive  type  behind  the  mask  of  mechanism.  The  ether  with- 
out any  of  the  positive  properties  that  define  "  matter  "  as  we  know  it, 
except  extension,  might  be  the  receptacle  of  processes  that  unite  teleo- 
logical  with  etiological  tendencies.  All  that  is  required  is  to  show 
that  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  possibility  that  the  ether  is  con- 
scious. The  omnipresence  of  gravitation  and  electro-magnetic  forces 
with  any  number  of  unknown  agencies  in  the  cosmos  make  this  quite 
as  possible  as  any  that  we  know  more  clearly.  We  might  remember 
too  in  our  laudation  of  the  Kantian  philosophy  that  his  agnosticism, 
was  as  much  directed  toward  our  ignorance  of  what  might  be  as  welL 
as  what  might  not  be,  and  hence  that  Kant  insisted  as  much  on  the 
possibility  of  an  intelligent  basis  for  the  universe  as  he  did  for  the  de- 
fect of  evidence.  Whatever  limitations  we  ascribe  to  grosser  matter 
in  this  respect,  and  materialism  cannot  exclude  the  capacity  of  intelli- 
gence from  some  of  its  forms,  we  should  have  less  reason  for  exclud- 
ing it  from  the  ether  than  from  "dead"  matter,  if  its  properties,  or 
capacities,  like  spirit,  are  to  be  described  as  immaterial.  The  ques- 
tion of  its  relation  to  space  is  irrelevant.  The  repugnance  to  making 
the  spiritual  extended  is  a  consequence  of  the  illusions  of  idealism 
which  gets  away  from  dualism  only  by  making  consciousness  a  func- 
tion of  "  matter"  and  then  disavowing  materialism  while  it  adopted  a 
doctrine  which  could  not  be  distinguished  from  it.  Idealism  has  been 
the  heir  to  the  antagonism  between  materialism  and  spiritualism,  and 
has  developed  it  to  that  degree  of  logical  completeness  which  prevents 
all  sanity  of  thought  independently  of  a  return  to  the  unity  of  matter 
and  spirit,  which  perhaps  it  often  intends  but  expects  to  accomplish 
only  by  making  spirit  spaceless,  or  by  making  both  matter  and  spirit 
spaceless.  Nothing  but  the  retention  of  the  dualistic  conceptions  of 
Cartesianism  after  that  system  has  been  abandoned  induces  philoso- 
phers to  insist  that  spirit  must  be  unextended.  This  superstition  once 
eradicated  we  may  hope  to  find  some  unity  in  things  compatible  with 
what  we  know  of  matter. 

Wer  sie  nicht  kennte  Who  does  not  know 

Die  Elemente,  The  elements, 

Ihre  Kraft  Their  power 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  545 

Und  Eigenschaft,  And  properties, 

Ware  kein  Meister  Is  no  master 

Ueber  die  Geister.  Over  spirits. 

Assuming  the  possibility  and  the  propriety  of  demanding  a  return 
to  conceptions  which  offer  a  hope  of  uniting  hereditary  enemies,  of 
divesting  the  prejudices  against  matter  of  their  sting  by  insisting  that 
it  has  long  since  lost  all  connotation  that  justifies  any  fear  of  it,  and 
of  bringing  the  immaterial  into  close  enough  juxtaposition  with  the 
material  to  make  its  existence  useful  and  effective,  if  provable,  we 
may  take  up  the  several  arguments  that  affect  the  problem  of  a  spiritual 
reality  that  has  been  embodied  in  the  name  of  God,  whether  we  regard 
it  as  a  substance  at  the  basis  of  "  matter"  or  as  a  function  of  such  as 
we  do  recognize  at  the  basis  of  cosmic  action.  I  repeat  that  I  refuse  to 
start  with  any  necessity  for  supposing  it  either  material  or  immaterial 
as  a  condition  of  making  the  argument  effective.  It  is  the  usual 
assumption,  whether  the  argument  be  for  or  against  the  existence  of 
God,  that,  if  he  exists  at  all,  he  must  be  immaterial.  I  shall  neither 
assume  nor  deny  this  conception  to  start  with.  The  first  question 
after  determining  that  of  causality  or  a  ground  for  "  phenomena,"  is 
whether  there  is  evidence  of  intelligence  and  then  the  further  question 
may  or  may  not  arise  as  to  the  nature  of  the  substratum  that  displays 
it,  this  having  been  immaterial  only  in  response  to  the  assumption 
about  the  origin  of  matter  both  sensible  and  supersensible.  I  am 
aware  of  the  presumption  against  identifying  conceptions  so  mutually 
exclusive  in  both  popular  and  philosophic  parlance,  and  it  is  not  my 
purpose  to  insist  that  we  can  either  call  matter  God,  or  God  matter, 
with  entire  impunity.  These  opposing  conceptions  with  all  their 
ramifications  and  associations  in  connection  with  the  antagonisms 
of  science  and  religion,  fact  and  poetry,  nature  and  art,  philosophy 
and  common  sense,  realism  and  idealism,  coincident  with  the  distinc- 
tion between  intellectual  and  emotional  temperaments,  mark  off  natural 
and  artificial  antipathies  that  are  of  too  long  standing  and  of  too 
coherent  a  character  to  yield  to  the  first  touch  of  revolutionary  change 
which  may  take  as  many  centuries  to  dissolve  as  it  took  to  form  the 
antithesis.  But  the  philosopher  does  not  depend  on  an  immediate 
pacification  of  the  plebs  in  the  enunciation  of  his  doctrine,  even  though 
he  condemns  the  fatuity  and  blindness  of  a  policy  which  treats  "  nature  " 
as  the  work  of  God  and  will  nevertheless  not  concede  that  it  is  an  ex- 
pression of  his  character.  Time  is  on  the  side  of  the  philosopher  if 
only  he  declares  the  truth.  He  can  at  least  call  attention  to  the  possi- 
bility of  conciliation  and  state  the  terms  on  which  it  can  be  effected, 
35 


546  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  then  leave  the  result  to  the  slow  process  of  evolution.  The  idealist 
must  concede  the  reconciliation  of  the  supersensible  of  science  and  the 
immaterial  of  religion,  as  his  fundamental  distinction  is  between  the 
sensible  and  the  supersensible,  always  being  chary  of  any  supernatural 
that  is  more  than  the  background  of  the  sensible  order,  or  reflecting 
in  that  its  truth,  its  beauty  and  its  goodness.  The  argument,  there- 
fore, which  will  rescue  what"  is  imperishable  in  the  religious  conscious- 
ness must  proceed  upon  the  assumption  that  whatever  we  choose  to 
call  the  divine  must  represent  some  unification  with  what  passes  as 
*'  nature,"  though  the  synthetic  character  of  the  argument  may  finally 
take  us  beyond  the  purely  mechanical  view  of  that  order. 

The  ^Etiological  Argument.  —  This  argument  is  merely  that  of 
finding  a  cause  for  facts  which  do  not  explain  themselves  and  which 
imperatively  demand  explanation.  I  have  already  indicated  what  place 
it  has  in  determining  the  noumenological  problem  which  is  the  first 
step  in  the  solution  of  the  present  question.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
repeat  here  the  more  fundamental  and  elementary  uses  of  the  principle, 
;as  I  can  suppose  this  to  have  been  accepted  at  this  stage  of  the  discus- 
sion. Nor  am  I  concerned  at  present  with  the  question  whether  such 
a  cause  or  ground  is  one  or  many.  I  am  dealing  only  with  the  con- 
dition which  prompts  to  the  supposition  of  any  cause  at  all.  This  is 
preliminary  to  the  search  for  its  nature,  single  or  plural,  material  or 
spiritual.  If  the  phenomena  are  so  connected  or  related  as  to  pre- 
determine the  unity  of  the  cause  the  ^etiological  method  will  apply  to 
them.  But  the  first  thing  to  recognize  is  the  fact  that  phenomena 
demand  a  cause  and  that  the  primary  conception  of  a  cause  is  that  of  a 
subject  or  substance,  not  an  antecedent  "  phenomenon."  We  may  call 
this  the  noumenological  point  of  view  in  contrast  with  the  cosmo- 
logical  which  endeavors  to  look  at  the  problem  from  the  standpoint  of 
a  series  of  phenomena  mechanically  initiated.  This  position,  as  I  have 
already  shown,  I  mean  to  treat  as  secondary,  as  it  is  not  adapted  to  the 
explanation  of  change.  But  it  is  the  noumenological  conception  of 
cause  as  distinct  from  the  cosmological  that  has  importance  here.  It 
represents  the  necessity  of  some  reality  other  than  "  phenomena  "  at 
the  basis  of  things.  Its  application  may  not  take  us  beyond  the  atomic 
theory  which  is  a  form  of  pluralism,  or  beyond  a  uno-monistic  theory 
of  reality  of  a  material  sort,  but  it  assumes  or  proves  that  events  must 
have  a  cause  or  center  of  reference  other  than  themselves,  subjects  of 
which  the  events  are  functions,  modes  or  attributes.  The  only  remain- 
ing question  is  whether  the  individual  subjects  thus  supposed  in  the 
pluralistic  view  are  independent  of  each  other  or  are  themselves  defi- 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  547 

nitely  related  aetiologically  to  a  unitary  reality  transcending  them.  The 
ontological  argument  must  answer  this  question.  But  the  setiological 
problem  is  the  first  to  be  solved.* 

The  noumenological  result  ttfaan  implicate  or  correlate  of  the  fact 
of  change  ;  the  cosmological  a  correlate  of  the  doctrine  of  inertia  in 
combination  with  the  fact  of  change  and  a  pluralistic  system  of  inter- 
acting realities.  Man  insists  on  accounting  for  change.  He  may  do 
this  in  two  ways.  He  may  suppose  it  the  effect  of  the  subject  in  which 
the  "  phenomenon  "  occurs,  or  he  may  suppose  it  the  effect  of  an  object 
on  the  subject  in  which  the  event  takes  place.  In  any  case  the  subject 
of  the  event  is  taken  for  granted.  This  is  primary  and  the  relation  of 
events  in  antecedence  and  consequence  is  secondary  and  does  not  rep- 
resent the  actual  causal  agent.  The  existence  of  God  or  of  any  back- 
ground to  "  nature,"  either  as  the  evolutionary  process  of  a  single  sub- 
stantive reality  or  as  a  pluralistic  system  of  atoms  having  a  further  than 
a  cosmological  unity,  is  involved  in  this  primary  fact.  Now  this  is 
actually  granted  in  the  very  conception  of  matter  or  ether.  They  are 
both  substrata  for  the  explanation  or  reference  of  certain  phenomena 
as  modes  of  existence.  Either  of  them  will  stand  for  an  Absolute  as 
long  as  no  evidence  is  discoverable  for  their  relation  or  dependence 
upon  a  more  ultimate  reality,  and  this  is  all  that  any  system  of  expla- 
nation requires.  But  of  this  in  the  ontological  argument,  since  matter 
is  a  generalized  concept  derived  from  a  cosmological  system  of  at  least 
relatively  independent  and  permanent  centers  of  reference,  and  the 
ether  is  as  yet  an  indeterminate  reality  required  only  by  the  limitations 
of  matter  as  known,  or  as  the  ultimate  source  of  matter.  We  are  now 
dealing  with  the  conditions  of  change  or  of  causes  of  events  prior  to 
the  question  of  their  ontological  unity.  This  primary  condition  is  a 
reality  of  which  events  are  actions.  Sometimes  it  is  characterized  as 
the  permanent  substratum  which  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  conceive 
change.  But  I  do  not  assert  or  assume  the  necessity  of  any  eternal 
basis  for  phenomena,  as  this  term  necessity  is  a  misleading  one,  and  as 
the  only  proper  import  of  the  term  is  the  inevitableness  of  an  event 
that  is  caused,  not  the  inevitableness  of  its  cause.  We  may  be  neces- 
sitated to  believe  the  existence  of  a  cause  while  the  cause  may  not  be 
necessitated.  Hence  I  am  not  at  present  concerned  with  any  nature  of 
a  substance,  but  only  with  its  causal  relation  to  its  modes,  and  this 
seems  to  be  demanded  instinctively  by  the  fact  or  assumption  that 
change  does  not  account  for  itself.  Whatever  the  initium  assigned  to 
any  fact  or  phenomenon,  whether  a  cosmological  series  or  not,  it  is 
always  concerned  as  taking  place  in  a  subject  and  as  having  its  char- 


54S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

acter  determined  by  that  subject.  An  Absolute  of  some  kind  is  thus 
necessarily  given  in  the  very  conception  of  the  facts  of  experience,  or 
if  not  given  in  them  is  necessarily  implied  by  them.  The  Absolute, 
however,  as  a  substance,  is  a  very  meager  substitute  for  the  conception 
of  God,  as  that  is  defined  and  understood,  though  that  much  has  first 
to  be  gained  as  a  condition  of  obtaining  more.  The  existence  of  one 
or  many  absolutes  is  given  with  the  fact  of  the  relative  and  the  number 
of  them  will  be  determined  wholly  by  the  number  of  relatives  not  con- 
nected in  a  way  to  suggest  unity.  A  system  of  interrelated  relatives 
will  suggest  a  single  Absolute,  while  a  system  of  independent  relatives 
must  suggest  plural  absolutes.  In  either  case,  however,  we  have  a 
substantive  background  for  "  phenomena"  while  pluralism  can  hardly 
be  conceived  as  a  rational  system  without  a  bond  of  connection  to  give 
it  the  name  of  a  system  at  all,  and  this  inevitably  leads  toward  a  unity 
at  the  basis  of  any  and  all  systems  that  are  not  a  chaos,  even  though 
that  unity  be  nothing  more  than  teleological. 

But  the  point  at  which  the  conception  of  the  Absolute  begins  to 
coincide  with  the  idea  of  God  is  that  where  the  question  of  its  initi- 
ating agency  arises.  The  conception  of  God,  as  defined  for  us  by 
history,  is,  of  course,  much  more  than  that  of  an  Absolute,  though  it 
includes  it.  The  Absolute  might  be  nothing  more  than  a  static  reality 
without  the  power  to  be  more  than  a  passive  subject  of  its  attributes,  a 
dead  inactive  thing.  But  the  conception  of  God  stands  for  at  least  two 
functions  which  must  be  found  in  the  Absolute  as  a  condition  of  giving 
it  philosophic  and  religious  power.  They  are  the  capacity  for  initi- 
ating change  and  the  exhibition  of  intelligent  action.  The  first  of 
these  is  an  astiological  and  the  second  a  teleological  problem. 

The  place  which  any  initiating  agency  shall  have  in  the  world  will 
depend  upon  the  compass  and  limitations  of  inertia.  It  is  perfectly 
possible  to  imagine  a  completely  dead  and  changeless  universe.  The 
apparently  barren  and  unchanging  condition  of  the  earth's  satellite  is  a 
good  illustration  of  what  is  quite  possible  in  the  whole  cosmic  system. 
The  doctrine  of  inertia  seems  to  require  the  constancy  and  stability  of 
any  condition  in  which  reality  may  be  found  at  any  moment  of  its 
existence.  But  what  we  find  in  fact  is  a  perpetual  variation  from  any 
such  fixity,  and  the  question  is  raised  at  once  in  regard  to  the  limits  of 
inertia  in  explaining  the  facts,  or  at  least  as  dispensing  with  causal 
agency.  Ancient  materialism,  especially  in  Epicurus,  saw  clearly 
enough  that  it  could  not  get  along  with  the  absoluteness  of  inertia,  and 
implanted  spontaneity  or  free  will  in  the  very  atoms  as  an  initiating 
agency  in  cosmic  collocations.     A  self-active  principle  seemed  abso- 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  549 

lutely  indispensable  to  it  to  make  any  progress  at  all  in  explaining, 
and  there  seemed  no  offence  for  reason  to  put  this  in  matter  as  an  en- 
dowment quite  compatible  with  its  other  functions  and  properties.  It 
was  only  when  the  human  mind  insisted  on  defining  matter  by  inertia 
as  one  or  as  the  most  essential  of  its  properties,  if  property  it  is,  and 
on  distinguishing  it  radically  from  spirit  which  was  endowed  with 
self-activity,  that  spontaneity  was  excluded  from  the  atom,  and  abso- 
lute inertia  took  its  place  in  matter.  Under  this  conception  no  change 
from  any  given  conditions,  whether  of  motion  or  rest,  was  possible 
from  within.  If  change  occurred  as  a  fact  it  was  traced  to  foreign 
initiative,  and  any  motion  once  instigated  was  supposed  by  the  doc- 
trine of  inertia  to  remain  as  it  was  started,  and  its  variation  in  direc- 
tion or  the  cessation  of  it  was  referable  to  a  similar  cause.  In  this 
way  the  cosmological  argument  for  an  absolute  beginning  of  a  series 
arose,  and  neglected  the  consideration  of  the  changes  that  were  con- 
tained within  the  series. 

Now  it  is  apparent  that  the  universality  or  absoluteness  of  inertia 
breaks  down  with  the  fact  of  change  wherever  the  subject  in  which  it 
occurs  counts  for  a  cause  modifying  the  direction  or  mode  of  what  it 
receives,  and  the  only  question  after  that  is  whether  the  self -activity 
supposed  to  explain  change  is  to  be  found  in  matter  or  outside  it, 
whether  the  Absolute  is  material  or  immaterial.  Nor  does  it  make 
any  difference  in  which  we  find  it,  if  the  result  actually  explains  our 
phenomena  and  opens  the  way  to  all  those  ideals  which  have  sought 
in  various  ways  to  obtain  a  support  that  was  supposedly  not  discover- 
able in  dead  matter.  Taking  inertia  to  mean  the  inability  of  a  sub- 
ject to  change  its  condition  whether  of  motion  or  rest,  and  nothing 
more  than  this,  it  is  apparently  if  not  unquestionably  true  that  all 
changes  involving  increase  or  decrease  of  motion  must  be  caused  from 
without,  and  as  long  as  the  explanation  of  all  collocations  of  matter 
was  made  a  mechanical  process  of  motional  change  after  the  simplest 
type  of  that  "  phenomenon,"  the  cause  had  to  be  external,  and  it  was 
natural  to  find  ultimate  initiating  causes  outside  matter  while  the  amount 
of  existing  motion  in  it  remained  the  same,  this  being  once  supposed  to 
exist.  But  when  chemical  and  organic  action  came  to  be  considered 
and  when  internal  changes  from  affinity  and  similar  "  forces  "  were 
recognized,  inertia  either  had  to  change  its  import  or  to  admit  that  there 
was  no  necessity  for  transcending  matter  for  the  explanation  of  certain 
changes,  and  the  consequence  has  been  that  modern  thought  has  practi- 
cally abandoned  the  idea  that  matter  is  "  dead."  I  do  not  say  that  this 
is  the  correct  tendency.     That  is  another  question.     But  when  it  has 


55°  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

done  so,  it  should  not  be  so  strenuous  and  irreconcilable  when  it  hears 
the  name  of  God  mentioned,  as  it  has  only  adopted  the  attributes  ex- 
pressed by  that  term  for  its  substratum  matter.  The  refinement  through 
which  the  conception  of  matter  has  passed  sustains  this  view  of  indiffer- 
ence in  regard  to  what  shall  be  ascribed  to  it,  and  the  ether  comes  to  our 
speculative  vision  with  such  immaterial  properties  and  with  nothing 
but  the  laboratory  methods  and  associations  of  science  to  prevent  us 
from  calling  it  God.  But  starting  with  the  fact  of  change  incessant 
and  multiplied  in  every  direction,  as  the  evidence  that  there  is  some 
limitation  to  the  law  inertia,  we  may  examine  the  several  indications 
of  the  extent  of  that  limitation. 

A  mechanical  system  works  itself  out  beautifully  on  the  doctrine 
of  inertia,  provided  you  have  either  eternal  motion  to  start  with  or  a 
"  frimum  mobile"  to  start  the  motion  which  would  remain  indestruc- 
tible, and  provided  also  that  your  one  fact  to  be  made  intelligible  was 
only  motion  with  a  well  articulated  system  of  media  for  the  trans- 
mission of  energy.  But  this  assumes  that  there  is  no  change  in  the 
direction  or  mode  of  motion  which  is  not  what  we  find.  But  how 
to  get  change  of  any  kind,  whether  of  motion  or  other  type  of 
action,  is  the  problem.  Continuous  or  intermittent  efficiency  of  the 
"  prifnum  mobile "  would  solve  this  question,  and  where  any  dissi- 
pation or  increase  of  energy  is  conceded,  would  seem  to  be  a  neces- 
sity, if  an  orderly  unity  is  manifest  in  the  system.  Of  course  Epicurus 
assumed  this  ki  primum  mobile"  in  the  spontaneity  of  the  elements, 
but  when  this  was  eliminated  there  was  no  escape  from  at  least  a  deus 
ex  machina  where  change  was  an  accepted  fact.  This  change  also 
involved  a  finitude  of  the  series  of  phenomenal  facts,  a  position 
assuredly  granted  in  regard  to  matter  by  the  vortex  atom  theory  which 
virtually  abandons  the  ultimate  indestructibility  of  matter  by  assuming 
its  created  nature.  The  cosmological  conception  of  the  material  system 
as  having  an  absolute  beginning  seems  thus  to  have  scientific  credentials 
in  its  support,  notwithstanding  the  a  priori  inconceivabilities  of  Kant 
and  Hamilton.  But  grant  that  the  series  has  no  beginning,  the  exist- 
ence of  initial  changes  in  it  is  assumed  and  must  involve  the  6ame 
variations  from  the  strict  interpretation  of  inertia  as  any  absolute 
beginning  of  the  series.  Moreover  a  strictly  mechanical  philosophy 
has  to  answer  the  question  about  change  in  the  system  as  a  whole. 
As  a  collective  whole  no  change  would  ever  originate  in  it  on  the 
doctrine  of  inertia,  but  it  seems,  from  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  that 
the  whole  as  well  as  the  parts  represents  the  initiation  of  change  and 
it  is  hard  to  conceive  it  to  exist  in  all  the  parts  without  supposing 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  551 

that  the  collective  whole  was  involved.  Assuming  that  the  whole 
was  involved  it  is  certain  that  no  mechanical  principle  will  account 
for  it,  and  this  independently  of  any  question  as  to  the  eternity  of 
motion.  It  would  be  the  same  with  the  parts  where  any  change  is 
involved  and  the  dissipation  of  energy  admitted.  The  so-called 
equivalence  of  actual  and  potential  energy  is  not  relevant,  as  this 
depends  on  an  equivocal  import  for  the  term  energy.  The  only  way 
that  one  can  evade  the  idea  of  change  in  the  supposed  dissipation  of 
energy  is  to  equate  the  dynamic  condition  of  it  with  the  static  or 
potential.  But  in  fact  potential  energy  is  not  energy  at  all.  It  is  a 
static  condition  antecedent  or  subsequent  to  an  active  condition  and 
either  the  static  or  the  dynamic  condition  involves  a  change,  according 
to  which  is  the  antecedent. 

But  the  two  important  points  against  the  universality  and  absolute- 
ness of  the  doctrine  of  inertia  as  the  primary  characteristic  of  the 
Absolute  are  (1)  the  qualitative  modifications  of  subjective  activity  in 
connection  with  the  action  of  efficient  or  mechanical  causes,  and  (2) 
apparently  the  behavior  of  radioactive  substances.  We  have  already 
seen  how  the  qualitative  changes  involved  in  chemical  action  and  the 
qualitative  modifications  of  energy  in  its  transmission  through  different 
media  or  subjects  lead  to  a  qualified  interpretation  of  the  conservation 
of  force.  We  found  that,  whatever  the  foreign  instigation  of  an 
effect,  the  nature  of  it  was  determined  by  the  character  of  the  subject 
in  which  it  occurred.  If  any  other  subject  than  the  given  one  were 
involved  the  effect  would  be  correspondingly  different.  A  match 
applied  to  a  bar  of  iron  only  modifies  its  temperature  and  volume 
slightly ;  applied  to  a  powder  magazine  it  results  in  much  destruc- 
tion. The  subject  counts  for  as  much  as  the  object  in  the  effect,  and 
though  this  subject  might  not  have  acted  without  instigation  from  an 
external  source  the  way  in  which  it  shall  act  is  determined  by  its  own 
nature  and  not  the  nature  of  the  external  stimulus.  The  chemical 
action  of  substances  has  no  equivalent  in  the  merely  mechanical 
agencies  which  produce  the  proper  relation  between  combining  ele- 
ments, and  this  is  especially  to  be  remarked  in  the  cessation  of  that 
chemical  action  at  a  given  stage  of  its  course. 

The  radioactive  substances  like  uranium  and  radium  illustrate  in 
a  specially  clear  manner  this  activity  against  a  narrow  theory  of 
inertia,  perhaps  more  fully  than  any  other  material  agencies,  though 
it  is  traceable  in  many  other  forms  and  conditions  of  matter  and  is 
possibly  a  more  general  phenomenon  of  matter  than  is  commonly 
supposed.     They  show  the  radiation  of  energy  from  them  of  great 


552  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

relative  intensity  with  the  minimum  of    material  depreciation.      No 
ordinary  mechanical  theory,  it  seems,  is  adequate  as  an  explanation. 

But  the  most  important  and  effective  limitation  of  the  application 
of  inertia,  as  any  intelligible  mechanical  idea,  is  found  in  the  sponta- 
neous actions  of  organic  and  conscious  life.  This  argument  is  all  the 
more  effective  from  the  fact  that  I  am  not  using  it  here  to  refute  ma- 
terialism, but  as  representing  a  fact  which  the  materialist  must  make 
consistent  with  his  system  or  give  it  up.  There  is  no  use  to  define 
spontaneous  and  free  actions  as  more  complicated  mechanical  effects, 
because  this  view  of  them  is  purely  a  priori  and  without  one  iota  of 
"  empirical  "  evidence.  All  the  "  evidence  "  that  is  produced  is  the 
assumption  that  mechanical  action  is  universal  and  that  alleged  free 
actions  "  must  "  be  of  that  type.  I  am  not  supposing  these  actions  to 
be  responsible,  as  there  is  a  radical  distinction  between  free  and  re- 
sponsible acts  which  has  not  been  sufficiently  recognized  by  philoso- 
phers. I  am  speaking  of  actions  subjectively  originated  whether  re- 
garded as  responsible  or  not.  They  show  no  such  correlation  with 
external  stimuli  as  true  mechanical  actions  show  and  should  show, 
while  the  "  complication"  of  which  the  materialist  speaks  only  illus- 
trates those  subjective  modifications  which  he  must  admit  in  both  the 
mechanical  and  chemical  fields  outside  the  organic  world,  and  serves  as 
a  mere  subterfuge  for  ignorance  or  for  principles  that  are  euphuisms 
for  something  anti-mechanical.  Moreover  there  is  the  direct  testi- 
mony of  consciousness  that  they  are  self-originated,  and  this  evidence 
is  better  than  any  testimony  to  the  existence  of  their  mechanical  actions 
and  as  good  as  any  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  any  mechanical  actions 
whatever.  The  testimony  to  their  self-origination  does  not  mean  that 
they  are  free  acts  of  a  soul  other  than  the  organism.  With  that  ques- 
tion I  have  nothing  to  do.  All  that  consciousness  attests  is  their  sub- 
jective origin  and  it  matters  not  whether  we  adopt  the  materialistic 
theory  of  mental  functions  or  not.  All  that  is  involved  is  the  fact  that 
certain  actions  called  free  are  subjectively  initiated  and  not  mechanically 
produced  in  the  manner  of  ordinarv  simple  acts  of  material  motion. 
The  reason  that  this  testimony  of»  consciousness  has  to  be  accepted  is 
that  its  impeachment  in  the  case  of  free  acts  involves  its  impeachment 
for  all  acts  whatever.  I  do  not  say  that  consciousness  directly  and 
intuitively  attests  the  nature  of  the  acts,  but  only  that  they  originate  in 
the  subject  and  not  by  the  object  in  anv  such  simple  way  as  the  trans- 
mission of  motion  by  impact  or  momentum.  But  apart  from  argu- 
ments of  this  kind  the  fact  is  so  evident  that  even  pronounced  mate- 
rialists have  felt  obliged  to  assume  that  the  primordial  atom  possesses  a 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  553 

germ  of  consciousness  attached  to  it  as  one  of  its  properties  !  It  was 
only  the  old  view  of  inertia  that  prevented  and  prevents  men  from  sup- 
posing elemental  matter  to  be  self-active,  and  hence  the  denial  of  evi- 
dence for  its  freedom  when  that  evidence  was  presented.  But  as  nearly 
all  scientific  men  have  come  to  believe  that  matter  is  not  the  "  dead" 
inert  thing  it  was  once  supposed  to  be,  there  is  perfect  readiness  to 
admit  into  materialism  postulates  that  were  once  denied.  It  is  true 
that  its  advocates  do  not  see  the  abandonment  of  their  traditional  view 
and  the  adoption  of  properties  that  had  been  previously  admitted  to 
properly  characterize  the  immaterial  and  the  divine.  The  facts  were 
denied  because  the  immaterial  and  the  divine  were  denied.  But  the 
later  materialism  simply  appropriates  the  facts  and  conceptions  of 
theism  under  its  own  name  and  is  not  ashamed  of  the  theft.  Material- 
ism has  simply  been  abandoned  without  calling  the  result  spiritualism 
or  theism,  the  advocate  of  it  forgetting  that  the  admission  of  facts  and 
properties  into  the  conception  of  matter  which  had  all  along  either 
been  denied  or  assumed  to  contradict  materialism  only  generalized  his 
conception  of  matter  to  more  or  less  identify  it  with  the  spiritual.  The 
fact  of  organic  spontaneity  is  all  the  more  effective  from  the  considera- 
tion that  the  absoluteness  of  inertia,  even  below  the  organic  world,  is 
denied  and  hence  is  much  less  probable  in  a  field  where  the  distinction 
from  the  ordinary  mechanical  phenomena  is  infinitely  more  marked  ; 
and  the  refinement  of  the  conception  of  matter  is  carried  so  far  that 
there  are  no  clear  criteria  of  its  distinction  from  the  traditional  imma- 
terial reality,  or  of  its  incapacity  for  all  the  functions  supposed  to  be 
the  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  divine. 

The  ^etiological  argument  thus  results  in  the  exposure  of  the  defects 
in  the  older  materialism  and  the  confirmation  of  the  position  which 
was  a  necessary  consequence  of  these  defects,  namely,  the  recognition 
of  limitation  to  the  doctrine  of  inertia  and  of  a  self-activity  in  things,  a 
position  that  either  demands  an  immaterial  Absolute  or  converts  the 
term  "  matter"  into  a  practical  equivalent  of  the  immaterial  as  often 
enough  conceived.  In  either  case  the  conclusion  is  the  same  and  the 
old  antitheses  and  controversies  have  no  excuse  for  their  persistence, 
except  the  stupid  incapability  of  both  sides  to  see  that  they  agree.  But 
there  is  gained  for  the  system  of  belief  that,  in  some  form  or  another, 
self -activity  has  to  be  conceded  as  a  function  of  reality  and  one  of  the 
most  important  characteristics  of  the  Absolute  beyond  its  mere  sub- 
stantive nature  thus  becomes  a  rational  object  of  belief. 

2.  The  Ontological  Argument, — This  is  the  argument  from 
material  causes,  as  the  ^etiological  was  from  efficient  causes.     This  on- 


554  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tological  argument  also  divides  into  two  forms  which  I  may  distin- 
guish as  before,  the  noumenological  and  the  cosmological,  and  turning 
more  or  less  upon  the  same  class  of  facts  though  viewed  somewhat 
differently.  By  the  noumenological  point  of  view  I  mean  the  process 
of  reducing  reality  to  unity  of  kind,  reducing  the  Absolute  from  mul- 
tiplicity to  simplicity.  This  is  done  by  comparison  and  classification. 
It  matters  not  whether  the  comparison  and  classification  is  of  sub- 
stances or  attributes.  If  we  start  with  the  latter,  as  we  may  very  well 
do,  we  should  only  apply  the  aetiological  argument  to  the  resultant  and 
obtain  a  smaller  number  of  types  of  substances  than  with  unclassified 
attributes.  But  assuming  that  similar  attributes  imply  similarity  of 
substances  and  different  attributes  different  substances,  we  may  start  to 
simplify  the  multiplicity  of  nature  by  finding  that  its  realities  are  re- 
ducible to  a  small  number  of  kinds,  or  even  ultimately  to  one  all-per- 
vading energy.  The  earliest  systems  of  philosophy  admitted  that  the 
elements  were  qualitatively  different  and  usually  limited  in  their  num- 
ber. Ancient  materialism  of  the  Democritic  and  Epicurean  type,  as 
we  have  seen,  postulated  an  indefinite  number  of  Absolutes,  though 
they  were  all  of  the  same  kind.  But  modern  atomism  has  again  ac- 
cepted a  qualitative  difference  in  the  elements  and  limited  them  to 
some  seventy  or  more.  More  recent  speculations,  however,  more 
especially  in  the  law  and  classification  of  the  elements  by  Mendelejeff , 
have  inclined  to  reduce  these  seventy  or  more  elements  to  a  single 
form  of  ultimate  reality  which  has  differentiated  itself  by  evolution 
into  the  various  kinds,  whatever  that  way  of  describing  the  change 
may  mean.  This  result  permits  of  the  supposition  that  all  activity 
may  originate  in  the  ether  and  flows  through  matter  as  its  channel 
after  matter  is  once  formed,  and  the  doctrine  of  inertia  is  saved  by 
putting  the  origin  of  change  outside  of  matter.  This  general  move- 
ment is  exactly  parallel  with  that  from  polytheism  to  monotheism  in 
ancient  thought,  or  perhaps  better,  duplicates  it.  It  is  simply  the  re- 
duction of  the  Absolute  to  one  instead  of  many.  But  I  shall  not  in- 
dulge in  speculations  of  this  kind  further  than  to  remark  the  important 
point  that  the  tendency  of  science  is  away  from  an  ultimate  pluralism 
and  toward  an  ultimate  monism  which  is  decidedly  away  from  the  old 
mechanical  materialism  and  toward  the  theistic  conception  of  things. 
This  scientific  and  philosophic  monism  exhibits  reality  as  far  removed 
from  "  matter  "  as  spirit  can  be  conceived  to  be.  The  ontology  of  the 
problem  reduces  its  aetiology  to  a  single  active  principle  at  the  basis  of 
things,  with  a  tendency  to  describe  it  in  terms  that  are  the  negative  of 
the  sensible  physical  world.     All   that    is   required  to  complete  the 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  555 

"spiritualizing"  process  is  to  prove  that  this  final  reality,  whatever 
name  we  give  it,  is  intelligent  or  acts  along  rational  lines. 

The  cosmological  side  of  the  ontological  argument  is  the  applica- 
tion of  the  conservation  of  energy  to  antecedent  and  consequent,  or  to 
the  series  of  phenomena  which  are  supposed  to  constitute  the  world. 
In  discussing  the  materialistic  theory  of  the  soul  I  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  this  doctrine  of  conservation  had  tended,  in  the  minds  of 
many  of  its  advocates,  to  identify  antecedent  and  consequent  qualita- 
tively ;  that  is,  to  identify  in  kind  and  in  spite  of  all  superficial  differ- 
ences the  phenomena  of  the  world  which  were  supposed  to  be  an 
expression  of  its  nature.  The  previous  materialism  had  kept  up  the 
antithesis  between  the  subjective  and  objective,  between  the  internal 
and  the  external,  between  antecedent  and  consequent,  owing  to  the 
fact  of  an  exclusive  reliance  upon  the  conception  of  efficient  causes  in 
the  explanation  of  phenomena,  and  consequently  its  phenomena  as 
effects  were  no  material  attestation  of  the  character  of  the  cause  other 
than  as  an  agent  capable  of  producing  an  effect.  But  the  materialism 
that  found  expression  in  the  conservation  of  energy  had  either  to  re- 
duce the  effect  to  the  more  circumscribed  nature  of  its  efficient  cause, 
treating  the  apparent  differences  as  illusions,  or  to  admit  into  the 
cause  what  is  observed  in  the  effect.  Of  course,  it  tried  the  policy  of 
maintaining  the  identity  of  antecedent  and  consequent  while  it  pre- 
served the  implication  drawn  from  the  assumption  of  their  difference, 
a  task  that  is  impossible.  Nothing  is  clearer  than  the  fact  that,  if 
cause  and  effect  are  identical  in  kind,  we  cannot  eliminate  the  recog- 
nized nature  of  the  effect  from  that  of  the  cause.  According  to  the 
conservation  of  energy  qualitatively  interpreted,  the  difference  between 
antecedent  and  consequent  need  not  be  greater  than  that  between  two 
personal  consciousnesses.  The  objective  consciousness  of  another  per- 
son does  not  appear  to  be  a  consciousness  to  me  except  through  teleo- 
logical  evidence.  All  that  I  perceive  is  a  system  of  what  are  called 
physical  phenomena  or  movements  from  which  I  infer  the  existence  of 
consciousness  antecedent  to  them,  and  by  them  producing  an  effect  upon 
my  own  sensorium.  When  I  assume  that  consciousness  is  behind  those 
movements  I  identify  it  in  kind  with  my  own,  but  its  nature  is  no  more 
directly  apparent  to  me  than  the  nature  of  a  cause  is  to  its  effect.  It  is 
quite  possible  to  explain  the  distinction  and  apparent  differences  between 
all  causes  and  effects  in  this  way,  if  we  insist  on  applying  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  to  them  qualitatively,  making  the  effect  as  much  the 
standard  for  determining  the  character  of  the  cause  as  any  direct  study 
of  the  cause  itself.     So  long,  therefore,  as  the  conservation  of  energy  is 


556  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

interpreted  to  mean  an  identity  between  the  products  of  cosmic  action 
and  the  source  of  them,  so  long  must  it  face  the  necessity  of  seeing  in 
the  consequent  the  nature  of  the  antecedent.  The  illusion  can  in  fact  be 
turned  completely  around  and  charged  to  the  materialist  for  supposing 
that  the  cosmos  is  mechanical.  The  effect  is  what  is  more  directly 
known  as  a  datum  of  experience  and  the  cause  often  indirectly  and 
inferentially,  in  so  far  as  its  "empirical"  nature  is  concerned.  If 
illusion  is  chargeable  to  our  interpretation  of  the  case  it  can  as  well  be 
thrown  upon  our  assumption  of  the  nature  of  the  cause  as  well  as  upon 
that  of  the  effect.  In  this  problem  illusion  is  a  two-edged  sword.  It 
cuts  both  ways.  The  duty  of  the  human  intellect,  when  it  is  dealing 
with  material  causes,  is  to  recognize  the  nature  of  the  effect  as  fully  as 
the  cause.  The  "  highest"  product  of  nature  demands  as  much  con- 
sideration as  the"  lowest."  In  the  animal  and  human  worlds  we  have 
consciousness  as  the  final  result  of  the  process  of  evolution,  and  the 
conservation  of  energy,  which  is  assumed  to  be  the  basal  principle  of 
evolution,  if  interpreted  to  imply  qualitative  identity  of  the  various 
steps  in  this  process,  must  find  consciousness  in  some  form  in  the 
stages  preceding  the  "highest"  and  supposed  to  exclude  this  "phe- 
nomenon." There  is  no  escape  from  this  but  to  return  to  some  form 
of  antithesis  in  kind  between  cause  and  effect.  But  we  cannot  sup- 
port evolution  upon  the  conservation  of  energy  or  persistence  of  force 
qualitatively  interpreted  and  at  the  same  time  assume  the  old  antithesis 
which  was  based  upon  the  notion  of  efficient  as  distinct  from  material 
causes.  Efficient  causes  were  supposed  to  produce  effects  unlike  them- 
selves, so  that  consciousness  appeared  as  an  epiphenomenon  irreducible 
to  the  materially  functional,  while  it  was  assumed  that  the  material  was 
clearly  understood.  But  evolution  has  insisted  that  there  is  a  stream  of 
identity  running  throughout  the  cosmic  process,  and  whatever  func- 
tion it  assigns  to  efficient  causation  must  modify  the  old  interpretation 
of  the  antithesis  between  cause  and  effect  or  surrender  the  usual  con- 
ception of  its  evolutionary  process.  The  assumption  of  the  identity 
of  cause  and  effect  must  involve  a  definite  proof  of  the  personality  of 
the  Absolute,  even  though  it  may  not  be  the  type  we  most  wish,  and 
also  as  complete  a  disproof  of  the  ultimately  dead  and  inert  character 
of  cosmic  reality.  If  the  theist  wants  to  win  his  victory  without 
effort  he  has  only  to  prove  and  press  the  conservation  of  energy  as  it 
is  so  often  conceived  and  he  will  have  every  form  of  impersonal 
materialism  at  his  mercy. 

But  it  is  the  doubt  about  any  such  interpretation  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  that  prevents  this  argument  from  being  perfectly  con- 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  $57 

I 

elusive.  In  the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  over  a  position  that  seemed 
to  sustain  the  persistence  of  motion  and  to  deny  its  creation  the  advo- 
cates of  the  conservation  of  energy  ran  off  into  assertions  that  left  no 
room  for  the  differences  between  cause  and  effect,  but  which  were  ap- 
parent enough  to  make  a  resort  to  illusion  necessary,  if  the  difference 
were  pressed  against  conservation,  as  a  condition  of  sustaining  a  unity 
and  identity  in  things  not  superficially  evident.  But  the  more  the 
"phenomena"  were  dispassionately  studied  the  more  evident  it  be- 
came that  the  conservation  of  energy  was  a  doctrine  subject  to  decided 
limitations.  It  was  obliged  to  confine  its  identity  of  cause  and  effect 
to  quantitative  and  not  to  extend  it  to  qualitative  aspects  of  phenomena. 
Correlation  became  the  better  expression  for  the  facts  that  were  once 
supposed  to  be  clearly  reducible  to  the  ordinary  mechanical  concep- 
tion, as  described  in  the  common  transmission  of  motion.  That 
abandonment  of  the  qualitative  identity  between  antecedent  and  conse- 
quent is  a  return  to  the  principle  of  efficient  causation  as  distinct  from 
material,  and  may  assume  that  the  effect  is  different  in  kind  from  the 
cause  and  a  creation  of  it.  This  enables  us  to  remain  by  the  material- 
istic assumption  that  consciousness  may  be  a  function  of  an  organism 
that  is  composed  of  units  whose  activities  may  not  contain  any  con- 
sciousness or  capacity  for  it  independently  of  their  combination  in  an 
organism.  But  the  moment  that  we  assume  an  identity  of  kind  be- 
tween the  motion  that  is  supposed  to  instigate  consciousness  in  an 
organism  we  have  to  admit  that  the  consequent  is  quite  as  much  an 
expression  of  the  nature  of  things  as  motion,  and  the  only  position 
that  will  escape  this  conclusion  is  the  abandonment  of  the  qualitative 
interpretation  of  the  conservation  of  energy. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  many  facts  which  point  to  some  measure  of 
identity  between  antecedent  and  consequent  in  certain  cases.  It  would 
indeed  be  strange  if  it  were  not  so,  when  the  ontological  consideration 
of  material  causes  in  the  substrata  of  phenomena  leads  to  a  perfect 
identity  of  kind  in  the  various  forms  of  matter  and  to  the  singleness  of 
the  Absolute,  in  spite  of  the  differences  that  we  observe  in  things. 
Subjects  revealing  likeness  of  kind  should  show  likeness  of  function, 
so  that  their  interactions,  whether  representing  causal  relations  of  a 
purely  transmissive  and  mechanical  sort  or  not,  would  manifest  some 
measure  of  identity  between  the  members  of  the  series,  and  only  differ- 
ences enough  to  give  and  sustain  individuality.  The  fact  that  the  ele- 
ments with  all  their  differences  can  be  classified  in  the  law  of  Mendele- 
jeff  and  appear  to  be  ultimately  reducible  to  one  form  of  reality  is  suf- 
ficiently near  the  Leibnitzian  doctrine  to  suggest  that,  in  spite  of  the 


55$  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

differences,  their  actions  will  resemble  each  other  enough  to  suppose 
some  identity  between  antecedent  and  consequent,  though  it  may  not  be 
determined  by  any  principle  of  transmission  but  by  efficient  causation 
without  this  transmission  and  without  assuming  that  the  efficient  cause 
has  to  be  different  from  the  effect  in  all  its  aspects.  The  two  subjects, 
putting  ourselves  at  Leibnitz'  point  of  view,  may  be  sufficiently  alike 
with  some  differences  to  account  for  the  identity  of  cause  and  effect 
without  assuming  transmission.  The  fact  that  any  language  of  inde- 
structibility and  convertibility  at  all  could  be  applied  to  the  relation 
between  cause  and  effect  rather  favors  some  modicum  of  identity  be- 
tween them  in  the  field  either  of  "phenomena  "  or  of  "  reality,"  and 
perhaps  both,  and  one  can  even  ask  how  that  identity  could  be  spoken 
of  as  quantitative  without  involving  more  or  less  of  the  qualitative 
with  it. 

There  is  a  good  analogy  which  can  be  obtained  from  psychology. 
It  has  become  necessary  in  recent  years  to  distinguish  between  what  are 
called  subliminal  and  supraliminal  mental  operations  as  apparently  dis- 
tinct from  the  merely  mechanical  actions  of  the  brain  and  conscious- 
ness as  introspectively  known.  The  time  was,  however,  and  this  was 
in  the  schools  of  Descartes,  when  the  contrast  was  between  conscious- 
ness and  cerebral  activity,  and  this  was  drawn  so  sharply  as  to  pre- 
clude all  elements  of  identity.  But  the  study  of  psychology  has  shown 
a  field  of  functional  activity  that  cannot  easily  be  identified  or  confused 
with  either  of  these  extremes.  There  is  a  large  class  of  so-called  sub' 
liminal  actions  which  show  intelligence  enough  to  require  distinction 
from  the  purely  mechanical  actions  of  the  brain  and  are  yet  so  foreign 
to  the  direct  apprehension  of  the  supraliminal  or  normal  consciousness 
as  to  be  quite  as  inaccessible  to  it  immediately  as  any  molecular  action 
of  the  brain.  It  will  at  times  just  merge  into  this  supraliminal  and 
hardly  preserve  its  integrity  sufficiently  to  deserve  a  distinction.  At 
other  times  its  cleavage  from  the  normal  consciousness  is  so  clear  and 
apparently  so  absolute  that  it  would  seem  to  be  a  totally  different  per- 
son. At  all  times,  as  exhibited  in  reproduction  and  association,  it 
may  be  supposed  to  be  the  substratum  of  activity  that  determines  the 
normal  consciousness  and  emerges  into  it  only  by  virtue  of  increased 
intensity  or  the  sudden  arousing  of  the  mind  from  a  sleep,  as  it  were, 
to  the  cognition  of  conditions  that  can  be  met  and  coped  with  only  by 
functions  less  lethargic  than  the  subliminal.  This  subliminal  while  it 
serves  as  the  background  of  muqh  or  all  that  appears  in  the  supraliminal 
shows  such  marked  evidences  of  being  intelligent  and  conscious  in  some 
sense  of  the  term  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  it  from  the  nor- 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  559 

mal  by  any  characteristic  except  the  normal  mnenonic  link  or  normal 
introspection.  All  the  coordinations,  adjustments,  and  displays  of 
mind,  a  hyperesthesia  at  times,  memory,  judgment  of  its  own,  and 
reasoning,  are  there  to  distinguish  it  from  the  fixed  and  mechanical 
action  of  the  brain  in  the  same  way  that  the  normal  consciousness  is 
distinguished.  The  least  that  can  be  said  of  it  is  that  it  stands  between 
cerebral  action  and  consciousness,  unless  we  cut  the  knot,  as  the  ma- 
terialist does,  by  identifying  consciousness  and  cerebral  action.  But  in 
fact  subliminal  mental  action  can  be  distinguished  from  the  normal 
consciousness  only  by  the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  introspected  by  the  nor- 
mal stream  while  every  other  characteristic  absolutely  identifies  it  with 
the  best  that  we  know  of  intelligence.  If  then  we  should  concede  the 
elastic  nature  of  cerebral  and  molecular  action  and  break  down  the  line 
of  demarcation  between  it  and  subliminal  action  so  as  to  identify  them, 
as  some  do,  we  should  have  a  certain  continuity  of  kind  in  all  the  phe- 
nomena excluded  from  consciousness  as  most  familiarly  known,  a 
result  that  would  create  a  presumption  in  favor  of  applying  this  con- 
tinuity to  the  relation  between  the  subliminal  and  supraliminal,  and 
consequently  the  substantial  identity  of  mental  and  cerebral  action. 
Scientific  men  who  use  the  conception  of  the  subliminal  so  freely  are 
not  always,  if  ever,  aware  of  the  significance  attaching  to  the  concep- 
tion of  consciousness  for  describing  what  is  as  fully  excluded  from  the 
normal  state  as  the  external  world  which  has  so  long  been  absolutely 
distinguished  from  the  mind.  Subliminal  consciousness,  excluding  what 
we  really  know  of  consciousness  introspectively,  is  so  closely  related  tc 
the  wholly  unconscious  of  brain  action  as  to  be  apparently  identifiable 
with  it,  and  yet  the  description  of  it  in  terms  of  the  mental  implies  its 
identity  with  that  also.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  distinction  so 
sharply  drawn  by  the  Cartesians  can  no  longer  be  sustained  so  clearly, 
and  the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  so  dogmatically  assumed  or  asserted  as 
then  leaves  the  question  of  their  relation  open  to  consideration  on  the 
lines  of  their  substantial  identity  through  the  connecting  link  of  sub- 
liminal action.  Such  a  procedure  carries  with  it  the  necessity  of  esti- 
mating the  nature  of  things  as  much  by  the  "highest"  as  by  the 
"  lowest,"  as  already  remarked.  It  is  certain,  then,  that,  on  any 
principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy  involving  the  qualitative  iden- 
tity of  the  mechanical  with  the  subliminal,  and  of  the  subliminal  with 
the  supraliminal,  this  view  leads  inevitably  to  the  identification  of  the 
extremes  and  we  shall  be  obliged  to  interpret  the  antecedent  by  the  nature 
of  the  consequent  in  order  to  save  our  doctrine.  In  fact  on  any  princi- 
ple of  cause  and  effect,  even  that  of  efficient  as  distinct  from  material 


560  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

cause,  whether  we  interpret  the  conservation  of  energy  as  merely  quan- 
titative or  not,  the  effect  or  consequent  is  entitled  to  as  much  consider- 
ation in  the  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  the  cosmic  Absolute  as  the 
antecedent,  especially  when  that  antecedent  has  to  be  regarded  as  quite 
as  much  an  effect  or  phenomenon  as  anything  supposed  to  be  its  con- 
sequent. With  consciousness  at  the  top  of  things  it  will  be  hard  to 
exclude  it  from  the  bottom  on  any  ontological  interpretation  of  the 
relation  between  cause  and  effect,  when  any  other  conception  of  causal- 
ity involves  the  necessity  of  valuing  consciousness  as  highly  as  any 
other  phenomenon  in  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  things.  The 
continuity  that  reigns  throughout  the  physical  universe  and  the  process 
of  evolution,  in  spite  of  the  variations  of  kind  manifest  on  the  surface, 
are  indications  that  we  may  yet  find  complete  evidence  of  intelligence 
in  the  Absolute,  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  give  it  the  anthro- 
pomorphic form  which  appears  most  intelligible  to  us.  All  that  pre- 
vents us  from  doing  this  is  the  actual  weakness  of  the  theory  of  con- 
servation which,  in  encountering  qualitative  differences  sufficient  to 
preserve  individuality,  provides  a  difficulty  in  the  ontological  argument. 
The  Teleologlcal  Argument.  — Kant,  as  we  know,  estimated  this 
more  highly  than  any  other  argument.  With  his  conception  of  the 
problem  as  discussed  in  the  cosmological  and  "  ontological  "  methods 
this  judgment  was  correct  enough.  But  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
it  is  less  important  and  cogent  than  the  aetiological  and  ontological 
arguments  as  I  have  defined  them.  Of  course  the  ontological  argu- 
ment, as  based  upon  the  conservation  of  energy  qualitatively  inter- 
preted, is  purely  ad  hominem,  and  the  teleological  method  comes  in  to 
utilize  the  conditions  left  by  the  reinstatement  of  efficient  causation 
after  the  limitation  of  the  material.  It  is  clear  that  there  was  a  close 
connection  between  Kant's  conception  of  the  problem  as  found  in  the 
cosmological  and  the  teleological  methods.  Both  started  upon  the 
mechanical  conception  of  the  cosmos  as  not  to  be  questioned  within 
certain  limits,  a  view  driven  into  his  mind  by  his  interest  in  physical 
science  and  his  deviation  from  the  monadism  of  Leibnitz  which  this 
interest  enforced.  The  manner  in  which  Kant  returns  again  and  again 
to  the  cosmological  conception  of  the  problem  shows  that  he  sympa- 
thized with  that  way  of  stating  it  and  of  representing  the  facts,  and  the 
only  difficulty  that  he  felt  with  the  theistic  interpretation  of  it  grew  out 
of  his  inability  to  prove  that  the  cosmic  order  had  any  such  necessary 
beginning  in  time  as  the  theistic  position  seemed  to  require.  In  the 
earliest  stage  of  his  thinking  Kant  accepted  as  a  foregone  conclusion 
the  purely  mechanical  view  of  the  world  and  the  interaction  of  its  parts 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  56 1 

and  elements,  and  did  not  realize  fully  the  problem  that  he  had  to  deal 
with  until  he  came  to  write  the  Critique  of  Judgment .  Here  he  came 
upon  the  conception  of  organic  teleology  which  gave  the  teleological 
argument  all  the  force  that  it  had.  But  until  he  came  to  this  view  the 
mechanical  conception  which  seemed  to  demand  a  cosmological  begin- 
ning in  time  as  a  condition  for  all  initiation  of  change  apparently  left 
the  theistic  doctrine  to  the  mercy  of  agnosticism.  The  force  of  the 
teleological  argument  in  organic  nature  came,  not  from  its  inconsis- 
tency with  a  cosmological  origin  of  motion,  but  from  the  assumption 
that  the  series  of  events  in  the  cosmos  was  not  one  simple  succession 
of  "  phenomena,"  but  many  lines  of  series  cooperating  and  converging 
toward  a  common  end  or  result,  when  each  series  taken  alone  would 
offer  no  natural  tendency  toward  this  end.  A  simple  succession  of 
events  having  a  mechanical  invariability  and  not  being  selective  toward 
the  consequences  toward  which  it  moves  will  betray  little  or  no  evi- 
dence of  purpose  or  intelligence,  no  matter  how  much  of  that  char- 
acteristic may  actually  be  present.  If  we  see  the  initiation  of  a  simple 
mechanical  series,  as  the  throwing  of  a  ball,  we  have  evidence  of  its 
purpose,  not  in  its  result  or  in  the  motion  toward  it,  but  only  in  the 
knowledge  of  intelligence  antecedent  to  it.  The  intelligence  may  be 
there  in  the  one  case  as  the  other,  but  without  the  direct  knowledge  of 
its  purposive  initiation  that  intelligence  is  not  easily,  if  at  all,  discover- 
able. The  same  would  be  true  of  a  number  of  parallel  series  of  dif- 
ferent phenomena  not  cooperating  for  a  common  result,  and  if  at  any 
point  they  should  actually  come  into  conflict  the  effect  might  even  be  a 
positive  difficulty  to  the  supposition  of  intelligence  and  an  evidence  of 
mere  chance.  But  it  is  hardly  so  with  convergent  series  of  events  not 
naturally  connected  by  mechanical  considerations  and  a  priori  antici- 
pation of  their  relation  to  each  other.  The  convergent  influence  of 
many  different  conditions  to  one  harmonious  whole  seems  so  beyond 
chance,  which  was  supposed  to  rule  the  mechanical  order,  that  it  sug- 
gests intelligence  as  well  as  causality  behind  the  process,  though  all  the 
individual  series  of  events  be  conceived  as  mechanical  and  without 
evidence  of  purpose. 

Now  it  was  the  mechanical  conception  of  nature  which  showed  to 
Kant  the  weakness  of  the  cosmological  argument,  and  it  was  the  as- 
sumptions of  idealism  perpetuating  the  antithesis  between  thought  and 
reality  that  exposed  the  weakness  of  the  "  ontological "  argument, 
while  it  was  the  evident  orderliness  of  nature  and  the  consistency  of 
intelligence  with  a  mechanical  system,  its  necessity,  perhaps,  if  that 
system  were  complex  enough,  that  saved  the  teleological  method  when 
36 


562  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  others  were  surrendered.  When  we  add  to  this  the  demonstrable 
fact  of  purpose  in  animal  and  human  actions,  with  at  least  a  decided 
simulation  of  it  in  the  tropisms  of  the  organic  vegetable  kingdom,  we 
discover  a  situation  from  which  it  is  hard  to  exclude  the  idea  of  pur- 
pose when  looking  at  a  mechanical  order  on  which  the  whole  is  built. 
Accepting  the  positive  knowledge  that  conscious  purpose  operates  in 
ourselves,  we  have  only  to  press  the  materialist  on  his  own  theory  with 
the  organic  nature  and  connection  of  man  with  the  cosmic  order,  with 
the  law  of  evolution  and  the  continuity  in  nature,  and  with  the  conser- 
vation of  energy,  as  frequently  interpreted,  in  order  to  insist  that  pur- 
pose will  be  found  at  the  very  basis  of  the  system.  We  have  in  our 
own  mechanical  productions  analogies  that  are  of  some  value  both  in 
regard  to  the  strength  of  the  argument  and  the  evidential  weakness 
with  which  it  may  at  times  be  associated.  We  can  easily  distinguish 
a  machine  from  a  product  of  nature  in  most  cases  and  we  distinguish 
it  by  the  evidence  of  design  in  the  coordination  and  articulation  of  the 
parts,  and  it  is  most  interesting  to  remark  that  we  can  often  be  assured 
of  design  with  perfect  confidence  although  we  are  powerless  to  specify 
the  particular  purpose  of  the  machine.  It  is  important  to  note  this 
fact,  because  the  objection  against  design  in  nature  might  be  advanced 
that  we  could  not  indicate  just  what  its  purpose  is.  While  it  may  be 
granted  that  we  cannot  specify  exactly  what  the  meaning  of  nature  is, 
it  may  nevertheless  give  evidences,  like  a  machine,  of  some  design. 
Before  we  can  estimate  its  character  we  must  know  the  particular  pur- 
pose it  displays,  but  our  ignorance  of  this  desirable  trait  does  not  pre- 
vent the  formation  of  a  perfectly  legitimate  conviction  that  there  is 
some  purpose  in  it,  if  the  evidence  is  present  to  suggest  and  establish 
it.  The  general  argument  is  the  complication  and  coordination  of 
various  apparently  independent  organs  to  an  end  not  attainable  by  any 
one  of  them  alone.  The  appearance  of  this  condition  of  things  in 
nature  offers  some  excuse  for  the  application  of  teleology  to  nature,  as 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  actions  of  organic  life,  whatever  the  diffi- 
culties involved  in  the  problem.  Nor  does  the  fact  of  natural  selection 
and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  alter  the  case,  as  they  are  often  supposed 
to  do.  They  only  increase  our  respect  for  an  order  that  might  be 
worse  than  it  is.  If  we  knew  the  exact  outcome  of  the  cosmic  ten- 
dency in  regard  to  the  weak  we  might  apologize  more  clearly  for  the 
process  of  natural  selection  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  but  wanting 
this  information  we  can  only  note  the  fact  that  they  indicate  nothing 
more  than  the  fact  or  possibility  of  defects  in  the  causal  regulation  of 
the  cosmic  order,  but  they  do  not  exclude  purpose  by  proving  that  it 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  563 

is  finite,  if  there  at  all.  The  trouble  with  most  thinkers  is  that  they 
expect  the  process  to  be  infinite  and  perfect  or  nothing,  one  party 
having  the  courage  to  affirm  that  it  is  a  fact  and  the  other  denying  it 
altogether  because  of  its  finitude.  It  is  only  our  sympathy  with  the 
weak,  a  spirit  created  by  Christian  civilization,  that  induces  us  to 
quarrel  with  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  a  policy  that  would  be  quite 
justified  if  the  immortality  of  the  soul  could  be  established,  or  if  not 
justified,  very  much  mitigated. 

There  are  various  difficulties  with  the  teleological  argument  which 
have  to  be  removed  in  order  to  discover  what  cogency  it  actually  has, 
as  well  as  its  weakness.  The  first  is  found  in  the  antithesis  between 
nature  and  art,  as  it  may  be  called,  the  latter  furnishing  us  with  all 
the  positive  evidence  we  have  of  objective  design  independent  of  na- 
ture. The  reason  that  our  mechanical  inventions  and  devices  supply 
us  with  the  absolutely  conclusive  evidence  for  design  in  their  coordina- 
tion of  multiple  independent  agents  to  an  end  is  found  in  our  con- 
sciousness of  the  ends  which  we  have  in  view  when  making  them. 
We  are  in  direct  knowledge  of  their  purpose  by  actually  constructing 
them  for  a  given  end,  and  any  construction  of  a  mechanical  complex 
resembling  what  we  know  is  teleological  will  suggest  this  even  when 
the  specific  purpose  is  not  known.  Moreover  all  human  conquests 
over  nature  have  represented  what  often  or  always  passes  for  some- 
thing superior  to  the  natural  order  of  things.  The  very  survival  of 
the  species  depends  upon  achievements  that  mean  more  or  less  man's 
superiority  to  "nature"  and  certainly  his  appreciation  of  those 
achievements  representing  what  "  nature"  will  not  spontaneously  ac- 
complish. These  artificial  arrangements  certainly  show  more  decided 
evidence  of  purpose  than  the  order  of  bare  nature.  The  construction 
of  a  park  leaves  no  doubt  about  the  existence  of  a  purpose,  even 
though  we  might  not  be  able  to  name  it,  while  the  growth  of  a  forest 
or  the  formation  of  a  mountain  would  possibly  conceal  its  design  alto- 
gether, if  it  had  any  at  all.  All  the  artificial  triumphs  of  civilization, 
invention,  manufacture,  art,  government  show  so  much  that  is  wrung 
from  nature,  not  spontaneously  given  us,  that  they  inevitably  de- 
termine the  standard  by  which  we  measure  its  character.  All  the 
finest  appreciations  and  achievements  come  from  a  struggle  against 
nature,  not  from  its  benevolence.  A  life  amid  the  perpetual  results  of 
this  struggle  and  their  contrast  with  the  real,  and  the  shadows  which 
idealism  discovers  on  reality,  provide  the  criteria  by  which  we  estimate 
the  purposive  or  purposeless  nature  of  things.  Design  and  benevo- 
lence are  patent  in  our  own  achievements  and  the  contrast  with  the 


564  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

order  from  which  they  are  wrung  inevitably  reflects  a  sceptical  suspi- 
cion upon  the  claims  of  providence  in  what  seems  to  be  nothing  but  a 
mechanical  system.  Of  course,  it  is  an  adequate  defence  against  all 
this  to  say  that  the  purpose  of  nature  may  be  very  different  from  that 
which  is  so  apparent  in  the  creation  of  art.  But  this  logical  defence 
does  not  remove  the  moral  embarrassment  of  the  situation.  Civiliza- 
tion is  so  dependent  upon  the  virtues  which  determine  all  the  achieve- 
ments of  art  against  nature  that  we  have  hardly  any  other  criterion  of 
morality  in  the  ordinary  consciousness  but  the  duty  to  rise  above  na- 
ture. Our  ideals  are  so  complicated  with  the  advances  that  we  have 
made  against  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  effort  of  nature  to  keep 
us  down,  so  to  speak,  that,  whatever  purpose  is  possible  in  it,  is  not 
likely  to  be  attractive  enough  to  secure  our  worship. 

"  Let  us  understand  once  for  all,"  says  Mr.  Huxley,  in  his  Romanes 
Lecture,  that  the  ethical  progress  of  society  depends,  not  on  imitating 
the  cosmic  process,  still  less  in  running  away  from  it,  but  in  combat- 
ing  it.  It  may  thus  seem  an  audacious  proposal  thus  to  pit  the  mi- 
crocosm against  the  macrocosm  and  to  set  man  to  subdue  nature  to  his 
higher  ends,  but  I  venture  to  think  that  the  great  intellectual  difference 
between  ancient  times  with  which  we  have  been  occupied  and  our  day, 
lies  in  the  solid  foundation  we  have  acquired  for  the  hope  that  such  an 
enterprise  may  meet  with  a  certain  measure  of  success. 

"  The  history  of  civilization  details  the  steps  by  which  men  have 
succeeded  in  building  up  an  artificial  world  within  the  cosmos.  Fra- 
gile reed  as  he  may  be,  man,  as  Pascal  says,  is  a  thinking  reed;  there 
lies  within  him  a  fund  of  energy,  operating  intelligently  and  so  far 
akin  to  that  which  pervades  the  universe,  that  it  is  competent  to  influ- 
ence and  modify  the  cosmic  process.  In  virtue  of  his  intelligence,  the 
dwarf  bends  the  Titan  to  his  will.  In  every  family,  in  every  polity 
that  has  been  established,  the  cosmic  process  in  man  has  been  re- 
strained and  otherwise  modified  by  law  and  custom ;  in  surrounding 
nature,  it  has  been  similarly  influenced  by  the  art  of  the  shepherd,  the 
agriculturist,  the  artisan.  As  civilization  has  advanced,  so  has  the 
extent  of  this  interference  increased ;  until  the  organized  and  highly 
developed  sciences  and  arts  of  the  present  day  have  endowed  man  with 
a  command  over  the  course  of  non-human  nature  greater  than  that 
once  attributed  to  the  magicians." 

Consequently,  art  obtains  all  our  admiration  and  enthusiasm,  and 
in  default  of  clear  evidence  of  even  so  high  a  design,  much  less  a 
higher  design  than  this  in  the  cosmic  order,  we  are  in  danger  of  so 
extolling  our  own  superiority  to  it  that  we  may  forget  the  virtues  of 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  565 

obedience  and  humility.  But  the  formation  of  ideals  from  a  teleolog- 
ical  order  that  is  won  against  nature  inevitably  tends  to  darken  the 
vision  for  any  other  form  of  intelligence  or  virtue. 

The  second  difficulty  comes  from  the  long  standing  assumption  of 
a  unity  of  plan  in  nature  that  converged  all  forces  in  the  welfare  and 
destiny  of  man.  Man  naturally  places  himself  at  the  head  of  creation, 
and  his  own  ideals,  as  we  have  just  seen,  tend  to  obscure  the  recogni- 
tion of  anything  else,  while  aristocratic  instincts  prompt  him  to  treat 
all  else  as  subservient  to  his  aims,  and  to  adjudge  it  accordingly. 
Besides  Christianity  started  out,  in  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul  at  least, 
as  already  remarked,  with  the  conception  that  the  whole  creation  was 
organized  with  reference  to  the  existence  and  salvation  of  man. 

One  God,  one  law,  one  element 

And  one  far  off  divine  event 

To  which  the  whole  creation  moves. 

But  I  must  contend  that  this  conception,  whatever  we  might  say  of 
its  tendency  to  encourage  too  much  self-importance  in  man,  is  exposed 
to  the  very  serious  attack  the  moment  that  we  endeavor  to  make  it 
consist  with  the  totality  of  cosmic  facts  now  within  the  range  of  scien- 
tific knowledge.  Man  may  be  the  highest  development  of  the  known 
universe,  but  this  fact  does  not  prove  the  convergence  in  him  of  its 
forces  and  plans.  There  may  be  manifold  richer  purposes.  The  fact 
is  that  singleness  of  plan  is  not  necessarily  the  mark  of  the  highest  intel- 
ligence. The  division  of  labor  in  finite  beings  may  often  make  an  ap- 
parent singleness  and  imperfection  of  purpose  the  only  possible  course 
for  a  man  to  adopt,  as  the  complex  work  of  civilization  can  be  accom- 
plished most  economically  and  with  the  best  results  by  using  the  indi- 
vidual's time  and  energy  at  one  subordinate  end  in  himself.  But  the 
ideal  life  hardly  admits  so  one  sided  a  development  of  the  individual, 
and  there  is  probably  not  any  such  singleness  of  plan  in  the  life  of  any 
man,  no  matter  how  his  activities  may  be  limited  by  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence and  the  division  of  labor.  It  is  certain  that  there  are  plenty  of 
men  who  cultivate  a  variety  of  independent  and  disconnected  ends.  It 
is  no  doubt  true  that  economy  of  energy  is  better  effected  by  concentra- 
tion of  it,  as  the  whole  process  of  intellectual  and  moral  development 
has  shown.  But  the  fact  that  men  can  and  do  cultivate  a  variety  of 
independent  ends  in  life,  not  always  subordinating  one  as  a  means  to 
another,  is  evidence  that  there  is  no  absolute  necessity  for  the  cosmos 
to  exhibit  a  single  plan  as  a  condition  of  being  regarded  as  intelligent. 
It  might  be  the  contrary  of  this.  It  has  only  to  be  consistent  in  the 
variety  of  ends  which  it  pursues.     No  doubt  an  apparent  or  real  single- 


566  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ness  of  plan  would  make  it  easier  for  man  to  discover  or  to  understand 
the  intelligence  pervading  it,  especially  if  that  plan  involved  the  possi- 
bility of  realizing  his  own  moral  ideals.  But  the  price  at  which  he 
would  gain  that  intelligibility  would  be  the  sacrifice  of  all  that  gives 
richness  and  wonder  to  the  scene  in  which  his  lot  is  cast.  On  any  theory 
of  the  cosmos  it  is  a  congeries  of  plans  which  cannot  be  made  intelli- 
gible to  us  by  pressing  them  into  one  mold  or  by  attempting  to  sub- 
ordinate some  to  ends  with  which  they  do  not  naturally  articulate,  and 
this  is  true  even  though  ultimate  knowledge  of  things  might  discover 
more  unity  of  plan  than  is  now  apparent.  Of  course,  whatever 
variety  of  purposes  may  exist  either  in  nature  or  man  it  will  have  some 
sort  of  unity,  as  this  would  follow  from  the  unity  of  the  intelligence 
that  held  them.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  formulate  this  unity  by  an 
abstraction  embracing  the  whole  or  by  selecting  one  to  which  the 
others  are  subordinated.  The  unity  does  not  require  to  be  one  of 
convergence  of  manifold  actions  to  one  end,  though  that  is  possible 
and  intelligent,  but  it  may  be  one  of  divergence  into  a  variety  of  con- 
sistent though  different  actions  and  ends.  It  may  be  better  for  man, 
and  we  might  say  that  his  duty  lies  in  this,  to  select  some  one  apparent 
design  that  commends  itself  as  worthy  to  aim  at  and  to  reinforce  the 
efforts  of  nature  to  realize  it,  while  he  occupies  a  respectful  attitude 
of  mind  toward  what  he  does  not  know.  Man's  morality  too,  like  his 
art,  is  so  often  a  conventional  product  that  it  prevents  his  seeing  the 
cosmos  in  its  proper  light.  It  leads  him  to  make  demands  on  nature 
which,  if  granted,  would  only  poison  the  best  springs  of  character. 
His  most  spontaneous  demand,  for  instance,  is  exemption  from  labor. 
But  those  who  have  studied  life  know  that  character  is  never  fine  unless 
tempered  by  struggle  and  effort.  The  ease  and  liberty  which  wealth 
gives  are  not  always  assurance  of  moral  worth,  but  more  frequently  of 
vice  and  libertinism  in  some  form.  Wealth  if  it  is  an  aristocratic  pos- 
session won  from  the  inadequately  requited  efforts  of  "  the  dull  millions 
that  toil  f oredone  at  the  wheel  of  labor  "  may  only  conceal  behind  the 
mask  of  culture  and  good  manners  the  most  inhuman  indifference  to 
the  rights  of  man  ;  if  it  means  nothing  more  than  provision  against 
struggle  with  nature  and  is  not  accompanied  by  voluntary  service  to 
man  which  its  possession  offers  the  opportunity  to  perform,  it  is 
effeminating  and  demoralizing.  This  will  be  true  of  any  ideal  which 
relieves  man  of  a  struggle  with  nature,  and  any  that  involves  the  entire 
subordination  of  the  world  to  his  benefit  alone  tends  to  obscure  that 
scientific  vision  which  can  see  other  values  in  the  cosmos  than  those 
which  seem  so  important  to  our  conventional  conscience.     Nature  is 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  567 

more  bountiful  in  her  provision  for  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  than 
man  would  be,  and  our  estimate  of  its  teleology  must  be  made  on  that 
assumption. 

The  fiery-footed  barb 

That  pounds  the  pampas,  and  the  lily  bells 

That  hang  above  the  brooks,  present  the  world 

With  no  apology  for  being  there, 

And  no  attempt  to  justify  themselves 

In  uselessness.     It  is  enough  for  God 

That  they  are  beautiful,  and  hold  his  thought 

In  fine  embodiment. 

But  the  multiplicity  of  the  resources  and  the  apparent  purposes  of 
nature,  especially  when  they  fall  below  the  ideals  which  man  forms  for 
the  regulation  of  his  own  conduct,  is  precisely  the  fact  which  depre- 
ciates the  value  of  the  teleological  argument  for  the  existence  of  any 
divine  agent  that  is  represented  in  human  interests,  while  it  conceals 
the  unity  of  purpose  and  moral  conceptions  which  might  make  for  the 
effectiveness  of  it.  If  we  could  stop  with  the  present  order  in  esti- 
mating the  teleology  of  nature,  an  order  which  represents  no  other 
apparent  fixed  purpose  than  the  continuity  of  organic  species,  there 
might  be  no  intellectual  difficulties,  though  we  might  feel  a  moral  re- 
vulsion toward  it.  But  an  end  or  purpose  which  ceases  with  the  evo- 
lution of  values  that  have  less  persistence  than  the  lowest  is  not  one 
which  lends  itself  with  ease  to  idealization.  It  is  inevitable  that  man, 
at  least  the  best  of  his  kind,  should  put  consciousness  in  the  first  rank 
of  the  ideals  to  be  preserved.  Otherwise  he  would  not  care  to  make 
nature  rational  in  any  respect,  and  with  this  acquisition  as  one  of  the 
highest  products  of  its  evolution,  he  can  but  measure  the  character  of 
nature  by  its  attitude  toward  this  result.  If  he  could  have  any  assur- 
ance that  the  legitimate  ideals  which  are  planted  in  him  could  have 
any  hope  of  realization  beyond  the  range  of  the  present,  where  the 
conflict  between  duty  and  possibility  prevents  much,  he  would  have 
at  least  one  fulcrum  against  the  burden  of  doubt  that  comes  from  the 
struggle  between  fact  and  hope.  It  is  the  absence  of  clear  evidence 
in  scientific  times  that  the  highest  achievements  of  evolution  shall  have 
preservation  in  the  only  subject  or  being  who  can  rightly  enjoy  them  or 
use  them  in  the  service  of  high  action  and  thought  that  gives  the 
sting  to  reason  when  asking  for  a  purpose  in  the  world.  I  can  easily 
conceive  good  grounds  for  concealing  it  in  certain  stages  of  civiliza- 
tion, but  these  do  not  affect  those  who  want  a  reasonable  motive  for 
aspiration  and  power  to  idealize  life.  If  only  man  could  be  sure  of 
the  purpose  which  he  thinks  ought  to  animate  a  providential  system 


56S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

when  it  teaches  him  to  value  the  highest  form  of  consciousness  as 
above  all  other  facts,  he  could  well  thrust  aside  curiosity  about  many 
other  plans  of  the  cosmos  and  devote  his  energies  to  further  conquests 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  and  would  have  a  fulcrum  of  great  power 
for  influencing  the  tendencies  of  his  nature.  But  not  being  certain 
•that  nature  intends  to  respect  his  ideals  beyond  the  present  life,  he  has 
no  motive  but  the  stoical  instinct  of  duty,  with  its  range  of  cotnmand 
extending  to  unlimited  time  while  its  achievement  is  confined  to  the 
present,  to  preserve  his  intellectual  and  moral  life.  Let  him  feel, 
however,  that  nature  is  on  the  side  of  his  best  moral  ideals,  not  real- 
izable under  the  physical  difficulties  of  human  life,  and  he  will  not 
have  a  motive  for  quarreling  with  it  for  its  merciless  order,  and  he 
will  be  in  a  temper  of  mind  as  well  as  in  possession  of  data  to  make  a 
teleological  argument  effective,  at  least  in  so  far  as  his  own  duties  and 
aspirations  are  concerned.  It  is  simply  because  he  thinks  nature  does 
not  appear  to  reveal  an}'  intention  to  preserve  its  best  creations  that 
the  doubt  about  its  intelligence  and  morality  arises .  lam  willing  to  con- 
cede that  any  attempt  to  place  the  ideal  only  outside  the  system  in  which 
we  at  present  move  and  have  our  being  is  to  threaten  its  proper  devel- 
opment. There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  ideal  should  be  found  only  in 
the  real,  and  that  those  normal  natures  are  the  best  which  fit  their 
motives  and  achievements  into  the  present,  content  to  let  the  future 
reveal  its  own  purposes.  But  that  is  neither  to  recognize  the  actual 
possibility  of  using  a  high  ideal  for  civilizing  man  nor  to  solve  an  in- 
tellectual problem,  except  as  the  reflex  of  an  actually  moral  life  creates 
either  faith  or  insight  enough  to  clear  away  doubt  which  too  often 
arises  from  the  indolence  and  lack  of  courage  to  make  what  we  fear 
nature  will  not  give  when  we  have  not  earned  its  princely  guerdon. 

I  shall  not  say  that  these  difficulties  in  the  teleological  argument 
are  insuperable.  The  force  which  they  will  have  may  be  largely  a 
matter  of  temperament.  But  for  the  man  who  seeks  anything  like 
certitude  for  intelligent  causality  in  the  cosmos,  the  inability  to  clearly 
name  a  fact  which  would  show  any  tendency  to  realize  the  highest 
ideals  a  man  can  form  and  that  he  feels  are  an  imperative  measure  for 
the  meaning  of  things  is  a  circumstance  of  some  weight,  not  against 
the  method  of  the  teleological  argument,  but  against  its  successful  ap- 
plication. That  is  to  my  mind  its  only  weakness.  Logically  it  is  the 
proper  means  for  proving  intelligence  in  a  system  which,  whatever 
else  it  may  be,  certainly  represents  a  vast  mechanical  order,  though  the 
recognition  of  more  than  the  old  mechanical  interpretation  of  nature 
diminishes  the  responsibility  of  teleology  in  the  argument  and  shares 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  569 

it  with  ontology,  as  I  have  defined  this  method.  All  that  is  wanting 
to  make  it  completely  effective  is  the  data  in  facts  which  will  show 
nature  as  careful  of  the  individual  and  the  ideals  it  creates  as  it  is  of 
the  race  and  of  the  relative  value  which  it  attaches  to  consciousness  in 
the  present.  If  that  be  once  fixed,  whether  by  faith  or  reason,  by  hope 
or  science,  all  other  purposes  of  the  cosmos  may  await  solution  with- 
out any  tortures  from  doubt,  as  that  so  often  paralyzes  action  in  fine 
minds.  And  it  is  not  because  there  is  any  superior  importance  at- 
taching to  a  future  life  for  consciousness,  but  because  the  fact  of  it 
would  be  evidence  that  the  value  placed  upon  it  in  our  present  life,  as 
compared  with  mere  material  existence,  was  actually  respected  by  the 
policy  of  the  cosmos.  Materialism  of  almost  every  form  would  dis- 
appear before  the  fact,  not  because  that  term  is  so  dangerous,  but  be- 
cause the  form  which  it  has  taken  has  associated  the  impossibility  of 
the  survival  of  consciousness  with  it,  and  with  this  system  and  its  im- 
plications out  of  the  way  the  pervasive  care  shown  by  nature  in  the 
preservation  of  individual  consciousness  would  suggest  very  clearly,  if 
it  did  not  prove,  a  wider  significance  for  intelligence  in  the  course  of 
things  at  large  than  would  appear  in  the  assumption  of  it  as  a  mere 
function  of  the  organism  or  of  composition. 

In  the  teleology  of  human  art  there  is  always  the  clear  conscious- 
ness that  nature  will  not  produce  the  arrangements  that  so  palpably 
show  design.  But  in  the  physical  world  it  is  the  very  spontaneity  of 
its  creations,  the  condition  which  gave  the  aetiological  argument  its 
weight  against  a  mechanical  materalism,  that  deprives  us  of  that  inert 
incapacity  of  nature  to  dispose  its  own  works,  an  incapacity  which 
supplies  a  standard  for  its  own  limitations  when  a  question  of  design 
is  raised  that  involves  coordinations  that  do  not  spontaneously  ap- 
pear in  what  usually  passes  for  a  mechanical  system  in  human  art. 
The  consequence  is  that  the  regularity  of  the  cosmic  order  leaves  us 
without  any  such  variation  from  the  natural  law  of  physical  phenom- 
ena as  is  so  necessary  for  the  manifest  proof  of  purpose.  It  may  be 
there  in  all  systems,  but  its  presence  is  not  necessarily  its  proof.  The 
organic  order  merges  so  insensibly  into  the  mechanical  that  the  design 
is  not  perfectly  apparent  when  there,  while  the  inability  to  point  out 
one  clear  and  unmistakable  fact  exhibiting  respect  for  moral  ideas  ex- 
tending their  reach  and  obligations  into  the  future  for  realization  makes 
such  a  purpose  as  may  appear  on  the  surface  a  satire  on  the  intelli- 
gence and  moral  character  which  we  wish  to  attribute  to  the  system. 
It  is  easy  to  apply  the  teleological  argument  to  the  discovery  of  human 
intelligence,  because  the  man  who  applies  it  has  both  the  conscious- 


57°  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ness  of  purpose  in  his  own  acts  and  the  standard  in  those  acts  by  which 
he  measures  the  existence  of  intelligence  in  others.  The  principle  of 
identity,  involving  the  similarity  of  human  acts  and  the  similarity  of 
men  in  other  respects,  assumes  the  validity  of  our  inference  to  con- 
sciousness and  purpose  in  others.  But  when  external  actions  diverge 
in  their  character  from  those  which  are  sure  marks  of  such  intelligence 
as  we  know  it,  the  teleological  argument  is  all  at  sea.  This  is  the 
reason  that  philosophers  resort  to  instinct  to  account  for  adjustments 
that  appear  to  be  neither  mechanical  nor  rationally  intelligent.  Coor- 
dinations and  adjustments  in  perfect  simulation  of  intelligence  take 
place  without  any  experience  or  education  in  the  idea  of  ends,  or  ideas 
of  the  complex  means  and  results  toward  which  the  acts  tend,  and  we 
have  no  way  to  describe  them  in  terms  of  rational  purpose,  since  the 
fundamental  element  of  that  conception  is  absent,  namely,  the  idea  of 
the  means  and  end,  as  we  recognize  them  in  our  experience,  at  least  in 
so  far  as  our  knowledge  and  the  evidence  goes.  Hence  with  all  our 
confidence  in  it,  instinct  is  but  a  name  for  our  ignorance.  Teleology 
seems  to  be  limited  to  adjustments  that  more  or  less  simulate  the  acts 
in  which  we  ourselves  are  directly  conscious  of  purpose,  and  these 
represent  that  variation  from  a  mechanical  order  which  we  expect  and 
observe  in  human  acts.  All  other  fields  of  observation  fade  insensibly 
into  ignorance. 

There  is  a  difficutly  with  the  theistic  argument  which  is  not  con- 
nected particularly  with  any  of  the  methods  involved  in  the  previous 
discussion.  It  arises  from  the  relation  of  the  subject  to  the  knowledge 
which  is  prior  to  it  and  which  is  represented  in  the  application  of 
serological  and  ontological  methods  to  more  general  facts  than  the 
spiritualistic. 

The  classification  of  the  sciences  showed  that  they  might  exist  in  a 
relation  which  implied  that  the  results  in  one  might  more  or  less  con- 
dition the  results  in  another.  Thus  we  found  that  the  progress  made 
in  physiology  more  or  less  conditioned  the  amount  of  progress  made 
in  psychology  and  sociology.  The  same  relation  and  influence  was 
extended  throughout  the  system.  In  the  field  of  the  noumenological 
sciences  this  relation  obtained  between  the  various  problems  repre- 
sented by  metrology,  hylology,  "  biology,"  pneumatology,  and  the- 
ology. The  achievements  of  metrology  affect  the  views  and  results  of 
hylology,  and  these  in  turn  affect  those  of  "  biology,"  the  last  being 
related  in  the  same  way  to  pneumatology,  and  pneumatology  to  the- 
ology. The  meaning  of  this  Comtean  relation  of  prior  to  later  knowl- 
edge, as  applied  to  the  problem  of  theology,  is  that  the  progress  in 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF   GOD.  SI l 

theological  problems  will  be  influenced  by  the  condition  of  pneuma- 
tology  at  any  given  time.  This  is  apparent  in  the  history  of  philosophy, 
though  the  assumption  is  often  made  that  theology  had  conditioned 
pneumatology.  But  the  fact  is  that  it  was  a  problem  in  pneumatology 
that  determined  the  course  of  theological  thought  and  its  nature,  in  as 
much  as  the  very  idea  of  the  spiritual  had  to  be  suggested  in  the  pneu- 
matological  problem,  while  it  was  the  object  of  theological  thought, 
namely,  the  existence  of  God,  that  was  used  to  explain  the  existence 
of  those  facts  which  give  rise  to  the  problem  of  pneumatology.  There 
is  no  contradiction  in  this  fact.  It  is  but  the  difference  between  the 
order  of  existence  and  the  order  of  knowledge,  the  or  do  cognitionis 
being  pneumatology,  theology,  and  the  ordo  naturce  being  God,  soul. 
The  point  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  the  fact  that  the  solution  of  the 
theological  problem  depends  in  some  respects,  at  least  evidentially, 
upon  the  progress  made  in  solving  the  pneumatological  problem.  This 
is  to  say  that  the  discovery  of  anything  like  "  spirit  "  in  man,  as  a 
condition  of  explaining  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  as  functions 
of  something  else  than  the  brain,  would  create  the  strongest  of  pre- 
sumptions in  favor  of  "spirit"  at  the  basis  of  cosmic  action,  and  it 
would  only  remain  to  secure  like  evidence  for  the  fact. 

I  have  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  sole  reason  for  supposing 
separate  territories  of  investigation,  or  separate  sciences,  is  the  fact 
that  we  have  to  deal  with  different  types  of  "phenomena."  These 
differences  suggest  differences  of  causal  ground  and  create  a  tendency 
to  distinguish  ultimate  reality  accordingly.  We  found  that  the  anti- 
materialist  wants  a  soul  other  than  matter  to  account  for  mental  events 
and  that  he  bases  his  belief  in  its  existence  on  the  difference  between 
mental  and  physical  phenomena.  But  we  also  found  that  the  law  of 
parsimony  will  not  permit  the  assumption  of  any  such  hetero-realities 
as  long  as  the  facts  can  be  explained  rationally  by  the  existing  and  ac- 
cepted reality  of  matter.  It  may  be  rational  to  suppose  a  soul,  but  if 
it  is  so,  it  is  because  matter  cannot  explain  the  "  phenomena  "  of  con- 
sciousness. The  facts  of  consciousness  may  require  a  soul  to  explain 
them,  but  if  they  do,  the  scientific  criterion  in  the  case  will  exact  more 
stringent  evidence  than  the  introspective  and  analytical  examination  of 
consciousness.  This  conclusion,  however  it  is  gotten,  and  while  it  may 
not  be  the  sole  condition  for  suggesting  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  back- 
ground to  nature,  deprives  scepticism  of  the  strongest  of  its  presump- 
tions and  prepares  the  way  for  raising  the  question  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Absolute  or  God  in  relation  to  intelligence,  not  his  existence  in 
relation  to  causality  which  has  to  be  determined,  as  we  have  shown, 


572  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

by  aetiological  considerations.  That  existence,  as  we  have  seen, 
might  not  extend  beyond  the  supersensible  form  of  matter,  so  that  the 
remaining  question  would  "be  whether  there  was  any  direct  or  indirect 
evidence  of  his  consciousness.  The  existence  of  a  soul  other  than  the 
organism,  whether  we  choose  to  regard  that  soul  as  refined  matter  or 
as  spirit,  would  quite  evidently  establish  a  position  of  advantage  to  the 
theistic  argument,  as  it  would  widen  our  conception  of  the  nature  of 
things  to  admit  the  possibility  of  much  that  is  not  dreamt  of  in  our 
ordinary  philosophy.  This  widening  process  is  shown  in  the  classifi- 
cation of  the  sciences  where  the  serial  order  of  dependence  shows  phe- 
nomena bearing  evidence  as  the  sciences  progress  of  greater  and  greater 
supersensible  significance.  But  the  last  steps  are  limited  by  the  amount 
of  progress  made  in  the  preceding.  The  difficulties  with  theism,  there- 
fore, are  directly  proportioned  to  the  doubts  regarding  the  existence 
of  the  soul. 

In  the  past,  history  has  shown  us  that  the  existence  of  God  as  an 
immaterial  reality  obtained,  as  a  belief,  its  evidential  cogency  primarily 
from  the  assumption  that  all  matter,  sensible  and  supersensible,  was 
created,  that  is,  had  a  beginning  in  time.  If  this  be  once  assumed 
there  is  no  escape  from  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  such  an  imma- 
terial substratum,  whatever  other  attributes  can  or  cannot  be  ascribed 
to  it.  The  strength  or  weakness  of  the  belief  is  that  of  the  assumption 
that  all  matter  is  created.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  assumption  of 
the  created  and  transient  nature  of  supersensible  matter  is  not  made, 
there  is  no  reason  for  going  beyond  it  for  a  belief  in  the  existence  of 
God,  unless  there  are  facts  requiring  it  and  we  insist  upon  dualism. 
The  supersensible  might  be  treated  as  this  reality,  as  we  have  indi- 
cated, being  necessitated  by  the  assumption  that  sensible  matter  is  the 
result  of  causal  action.  This  supersensible  matter  might  be  the  per- 
manent cause  of  things  and  the  only  question  remaining  would  be  as 
to  how  consciousness  in  the  individual  is  related  to  it,  whether  (  a  )  as 
a  function  of  a  supersensible  reality  other  than  the  physical  organism 
or  (  b  )  as  a  function  only  of  the  sensible  reality  itself  dissolvable. 
The  former  conclusion  would  strengthen  the  belief  that  the  supersen- 
sible world  had  larger  possibilities  than  are  usually  assumed  by  sci- 
ence, and  the  latter  would  leave  materialism  an  undisputed  master 
of  the  field.  It  is  quite  apparent  therefore  to  what  extent  theism 
awaits  the  conclusion  of  pneumatology. 

I  shall  have  occasion  in  the  last  chapter  to  make  some  final  obser- 
vations on  this  problem.  At  present  I  can  only  summarize  the  discus- 
sion that  has  already  taken  form.     In  doing  this  I  must  emphasize  a 


THE  EXISTENCE    OF  GOD.  573 

remark  previously  made.  It  is  that  no  one  of  the  methods  here  em- 
ployed to  justify  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  God,  or  some  reality 
active  and  intelligent  in  the  cosmic  process,  is  sufficient  alone  to  estab- 
lish the  full  content  of  that  idea,  unless  we  can  assume  that  the  teleo- 
logical  argument,  as  an  embodiment  or  combination  of  the  other  two, 
can  do  so.  The  aetiological  method  has  its  limitations  and  can  go  no 
further  than  guaranteeing  some  sort  of  Absolute  other  than  mere  phe- 
nomena. The  ontological  argument  shows  the  unity  of  the  Absolute 
as  the  background  of  the  multiple  realities  that  are  either  its  modes, 
its  creations,  or  its  modifications,  while  it  supplies  the  probable  source 
for  estimating  its  attributes  in  the  same  way  that  we  determine  the 
nature  of  phenomena  by  the  conservation-  of  energy.  It  applies  the 
principle  of  identity  or  material  causation  to  the  determination  of  the 
nature  of  reality  by  including  the  highest  in  our  data,  where  before  we 
had  only  the  principle  of  efficient  causation  as  our  measure,  and  this 
does  not  require  the  antecedent  to  be  like  the  consequent.  If  a  soul 
other  than  the  organism  were  once  established  as  a  fact  beyond  ques- 
tion we  should  not  find  the  ontological  argument  in  the  form  presented 
so  useful  as  it  is  now  in  an  ad  hominem  way  with  the  believer  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  qualitatively  understood.  Consciousness  would 
quite  possibly  be  an  attribute  of  the  supersensible  reality  after  such  a 
thing  as  the  soul  was  admitted  and  it  would  be  only  a  matter  of  evi- 
dence to  show  that  the  soul  existed.  But  as  long  as  the  pneumato- 
logical  problem  is  not  solved  to  satisfaction  the  ontological  argument 
will  be  a  source  of  greater  reliance,  whether  any  more  conclusive  or 
not.  The  teleological  argument  uses  the  organic  adjustments  of 
nature  which  seem  too  complex  for  mechanical  explanation,  and  with 
the  application  of  both  aetiological  and  ontological  considerations  has 
much  force  in  suggesting  the  possibility  of  intelligence  transcending  or 
immanent  in  mechanism.  To  each  of  the  methods  I  concede  some  force 
for  their  respective  objects,  while  the  fact  that  all  of  them  together 
coincide  in  supporting  at  least  the  possibility  of  the  divine,  is  that 
much  more  in  favor  of  their  legitimacy  in  both  method  and  result. 
The  only  limitation  to  their  effectiveness  is  the  anthropomorphic  con- 
ception of  God  which  we  have  formed  and  which  is  hardly,  if  at  all, 
supported  by  the  data  upon  which  the  argument  has  to  be  based  for 
its  material  result.  There  is  little  difficulty  in  supposing  some  kind 
of  intelligence  initiating  and  pervading  cosmic  change  and  evolution, 
but  it  is  the  specific  kind  of  that  intelligence  and  its  evident  variation 
from  the  type  of  personality  which  we  must  naturally  revere  that  gives 
all  the  trouble.     The  actual  facts  of  observation  in  the  order  of  the 


574  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

cosmos  do  not  reflect  any  other  apparent  purpose  in  it  than  the  crea- 
tion and  temporary  preservation  of  organic  species.  The  highest 
ideals  of  man  seem  to  have  no  part  in  its  destinies.  The  permanent 
feature  of  its  order  seems  to  be  the  mechanical  one  and  no  recognized 
scientific  evidence  of  interference  with  it  is  apparent.  It  may  not  be 
necessary  that  any  variation  from  such  an  order  should  be  present, 
except  as  evidence  of  intelligence.  But  as  long  as  man  conceives  a 
mechanical  order  as  possible  without  intelligent  initiation  he  will  be 
sceptical  of  theistic  claims,  unless  the  results  of  the  mechanical  order 
coincide  with  the  moral  ideals  which  his  nature  and  ethical  impulses 
compel  him  to  recognize.  To  suppose  that  the  process  stops  with  the 
production  of  organic  species  assumes  that  its  best  achievements  are 
transient  and  that  its  lowest  order  is  the  more  permanent.  Some  point 
of  view  in  facts  must  be  shown  which  makes  species  a  means  to  a 
remoter  end  and  which  widens  the  conception  of  things  beyond  the 
present  apparent  mechanical  order,  if  we  are  to  secure  the  presump- 
tions needed,  and  these  facts  must  reconcile  the  mechanical  and  the 
organic  view  of  the  cosmos.  When  we  can  soften  the  immemorial 
antithesis  between  God  and  nature  the  problem  will  be  nearer  solution, 
and  that  can  hardly  be  attained  until  there  is  some  definite  assurance 
that  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  survives  death,  a  fact  that 
would  indicate  that  the  cosmic  system  had  some  respect  for  the  ideals 
that  it  has  implanted  and  that  its  own  nature  was  richer  than  the 
materialist  supposed.  It  remains  for  the  future  to  furnish  the  facts 
that  may  justify  any  such  expectation. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

In  the  conclusion  of  this  work  I  wish  to  undertake  a  various  task.  I 
shall  not  enter  into  any  technical  discussion  or  argument  for  or  against 
any  special  philosophic  doctrine.  I  wish  only  to  make  some  confes- 
sions with  general  reflections  on  the  problems  of  this  volume  that  have 
to  be  separated  from  critical  investigations.  All  the  questions  that 
have  already  been  the  subject  of  remarks  will  come  up  for  general 
review,  but  not  for  either  offensive  or  defensive  criticism,  the  object 
here  being  the  examination  of  their  strength  and  weakness  in  the  gen- 
eral culture  of  history.  What  I  wish  to  do,  then,  is  to  indulge,  some- 
what dogmatically,  observations  that  may  point  the  way  partly  to  me- 
diation and  partly  to  the  correction  of  misunderstandings  which  have 
unfortunately  petrified  into  animosities  that  ought  not  to  characterize 
the  claims  of  so  high  a  civilization  as  we  possess.  In  the  manifold 
temperaments  and  interests  of  the  world,  philosophy  can  hardly  afford 
to  be  so  selective  in  its  favors  as  to  neglect  one  half  the  facts  which  its 
cosmopolitan  genius  and  functions  are  called  upon  to  respect.  Its  duty 
may  invite  the  hostility  of  both  parties  in  the  world's  conflict  of  intel- 
lect and  sentiment,  but  its  course  is  nevertheless  clear,  whether  the 
ideals  which  it  marks  out  for  itself  have  any  prospect  of  realization  or 
not.  Misunderstanding  may  be  the  penalty  for  its  mediating  sympa- 
thies when  it  does  not  choose  to  identify  its  fortunes  with  either  party 
to  controversy,  but  the  other  alternative,  party  warfare,  is  in  danger  of 
encouraging  in  the  intellectual  movement  of  history  that  ghastly  spec- 
tacle which  makes  the  struggle  for  existence  in  the  material  world  so 
fateful  to  beauty  and  goodness,  while  the  truth  remains  only  half  dis- 
covered. There  are  moments  in  its  progress,  however,  when  pacifi- 
cation may  not  be  its  duty,  but  a  mark  of  weakness.  These  are 
exigencies  when  it  must  assume  the  leadership  of  human  thought  and 
direct  instead  of  modify  passionate  convictions.  Unfortunately  it 
seldom  has  the  freedom  to  carry  any  message  to  the  race  except  those 
meager  truths  which  the  passions  of  controversy  will  permit  as  either 
harmless  or  unintelligible  to  both  parties.  Its  inspiration  is  too  often 
checked  by  the  necessity  of  being  dispassionate  in  the  estimation  of 
truth,  while  it  has  to  evade  the  precipices  of  sectarian  dispute  and  just 
when  it  is  called  to  guide  and  animate  both  the  mind  and  the  will. 
575 


576  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  sciences,  once  its  wards,  have  gained  their  independence,  and  re- 
ligion, once  its  protector,  will  no  longer  acknowledge  its  offspring,  and 
both  in  mortal  combat  with  each  other  agree  in  the  neglect  of  a 
guardian.  But  if  it  choose  wisely  between  mediation  and  missionary 
zeal,  it  will  have  fewer  occasions  to  mourn  the  loss  of  its  children. 

The  first  problem  to  come  under  review  in  this  conclusion  is  that 
of  realism  and  idealism.  I  have  already  indicated  that  the  distinction 
between  them  is  not  always  what  it  seems.  Partisans  on  both  sides, 
like  to  caricature  their  opponents  as  the  only  way  to  proselytize  or  to 
obtain  a  hearing.  Idealists  adopt  a  conception  of  realism  which  gives 
them  a  cheap  and  easy  victory,  and  realists  evade  the  difficulties  of 
sense  perception  in  a  way  that  makes  idealism  appear  ridiculous.  Both 
schools  do  not  always  face  the  facts  of  human  nature  with  equal  frank- 
ness or  recognize  the  difficulties  of  asserting  the  position  of  one  or  the 
other  party  without  qualification.  Too  many  associated  interests  are 
at  stake  to  make  the  truth  so  attractive  as  it  should  be.  The  attitude 
which  I  have  assumed  in  this  work  will  be  clearly  classed  by  most 
readers  as  realistic,  although  I  have  been  careful  not  to  so  denominate 
myself.  I  must  warn  the  student,  however,  that  I  am  likely  to  protest 
against  any  such  characterization.  It  can  be  made  only  on  very  defi- 
nite conditions,  and  these  are  that  the  term  shall  be  elastic  enough  to 
include  much  that  is  covered  by  idealism  and  that  the  measure  of  its 
meaning  shall  not  be  the  untutored  mind.  I  would  resent  equally  the 
accusation  that  I  was  an  idealist,  as  perhaps  the  general  spirit  of  pre- 
vious discussion  sufficiently  indicates,  though  not  because  there  is  no 
truth  in  it,  but  because  it  is  quite  as  liable  to  illusions  as  its  rival  theory. 
Verbal  tags  of  this  kind  are  worse  than  useless  unless  their  limitations 
are  fully  recognized  and  clearly  stated.  The  truth  is  too  complicated 
and  too  comprehensive  to  be  concentrated  in  a  shibboleth,  no  matter 
whether  the  denomination  be  realism  or  idealism.  Neither  is  the 
combination  of  these  terms  any  better,  except  to  prove  the  more  cos- 
mopolitan spirit  of  the  man  who  concedes  it.  If  we  could  insist,  as  I 
think  we  can,  that  there  is  no  reasonable  difference  between  the  two 
theories,  when  we  ignore  the  uneducated  mind  which  has  no  theories, 
we  could  be  independent  of  narrowing  terms  like  these,  as  the  problem 
of  "  knowledge  "  should  be  cosmopolitan.  There  is  nothing  more  con- 
ducive to  narrow-mindedness  in  philosophy,  a  quality  that  goes  by  the 
name  of  bigotry  in  religion,  than  the  persistent  attempt  to  exhaust  the 
riches  in  the  problem  of  "knowledge"  by  dialectic  play  with  these 
terms.  The  meaning  of  the  universe  cannot  be  compressed  into  either 
of  these  conceptions,  as  they  must  be  conceived  concretely.     Their 


conclusion.  577 

content  cannot  be  finally  or  exhaustively  determined  by  a  definition  or 
a  single  illustrative  concept.  Whatever  meaning  they  possess  can  be 
obtained  and  understood  only  at  the  end,  not  the  beginning  of  our 
reflections,  and  it  is  useless  to  attempt  the  inoculation  of  any  student's 
mind  with  the  assumption  that  he  must  direct  his  thought  to  either  goal 
as  the  condition  of  intelligent  reflection.  The  consequence  is  that 
"  idealism"  and  "  realism  "  are  mere  playthings  for  minds  that  have 
become  lost  in  abstractions  and  do  not  know  how  to  find  their  way  in 
facts,  unless  they  try  to  preempt  their  riches  by  question-begging 
epithets.  I  concede  them  an  important  convenience  for  minds  that 
have  once  conquered  the  labyrinthian  mazes  of  speculative  thought  and 
that  can  command  all  its  ramifications  in  exposition  of  the  problem. 
In  this  situation  they  will  always  take  the  coloring  of  their  environment 
and  lose  that  inflexible  cast  which  dogmatism  and  scholastic  logic  tend 
to  give  them.  Away  from  the  facts  that  illustrate  them  and  make 
them  intelligible,  they  are  only  barren  abstractions  like  the  distinctions 
of  scholasticism.  Hence,  as  conceptions  for  philosophic  conjuring 
they  are  too  bare  to  conceal  the  tricks  which  try  to  mask  knowledge  in 
learned  dialectic,  while  a  bold  insight  and  a  rich  judgment  equipped 
with  facts  of  experience  can  penetrate  all  disguises  and  exhibit  a  more 
splendid  vision  than  any  formal  logic  working  on  abstractions.  The 
literature  which  does  not  pass  technically  as  philosophy,  but  which 
actually  deals  with  philosophic  problems  is  an  evidence  of  this.  It  is 
intelligible  and  inspiring.  It  is  not  ashamed  to  use  the  vernacular  to 
express  its  thoughts.  It  has  patience  and  is  willing  to  take  time  in  the 
communication  of  its  ideas.  It  appeals  to  the  imagination.  It  reaches 
far  beyond  the  colder  analysis  of  scientific  criticism  and  appeals  to  that 
wide  experience  which  is  not  ashamed  to  admit  the  influence  of  poetry 
into  philosophic  reflection.  There  are,  of  course,  limits  to  the  legit- 
imate use  of  such  influences,  as  truth  is  clearer  when  it  is  divested  of 
emotional  color,  though  it  may  have  less  power.  But  if  philosophy 
had  retained  its  old  human  interests  it  might  enjoy  the  advantages  of 
such  a  connection  in  its  theories.  But  it  has  taken  on  the  critical  and 
exacting  temper  of  science,  and  eschews  embellishment  as  it  would 
poison.  Its  "realism"  has  become  doubly  realistic  in  its  tendencies 
to  materialistic  conception,  and  even  its  idealism  has  lost  the  warmth 
of  feeling  and  enthusiasm  that  characterized  Platonic  speculation  and 
has  adopted  the  frigid,  passionless  method  and  matter  of  the  Kantian 
theory  of  "  knowledge."  It  is  all  a  part  of  the  reaction  against  the 
emotional  view  of  things  that  had  associated  itself  with  the  poetic  and 
religious  theories  of  the  world,  and  has  a  most  healthy  influence  in  so 
37 


57§  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

far  as  it  has  conduced  to  profounder  and  truer  thought.  But  there  is 
no  reason  why  both  the  poetic  and  the  scientific  side  of  philosophy 
could  not  find  shelter  under  the  same  covering.  Truth  has  power  in 
proportion  to  the  passion  with  which  it  is  held  and  in  proportion  to 
the  success  with  which  it  allies  itself  with  art  and  morality. 

It  is  often  said  that  realism  is  the  natural  theory  of  the  common 
mind,  and  that  reflection  invariably  supplants  it  by  idealism.  But  this 
is  not  exactly  the  way  to  state  the  facts  of  the  case.  The  common 
mind  in  reality  does  not  have  any  theory  whatever  that  can  be  called 
by  the  name.  Its  conceptions  may  be  what  they  are  represented  to 
be  by  the  idealist,  but  in  spite  of  its  acceptance  of  certain  forms  of 
statement  without  criticism  or  analysis  its  position  is  not  to  be  taken 
as  something  deserving  a  philosophic  name  and  refutation.  What 
calls  itself  idealism  is  the  outcome  of  conscious  investigation  and  criti- 
cism, and  of  the  discovery  that  the  naive  judgments  of  "  common 
sense  "  possess  certain  perplexities  which  demand  study  and  explana- 
tion. The  type  of  thought  which  this  naive  position  represents 
accepts  the  denomination  of  realism  from  those  who  undertake  its 
refutation.  As  a  theory  of  "  knowledge,"  therefore,  realism  is  subse- 
quent to  what  calls  itself  idealism,  though  the  conception  denominated 
by  it  is  not  thus  subsequent.  Its  place  and  function  in  thought  must 
therefore  be  determined  relatively  to  the  purposes  of  idealism.  Now 
idealism,  whatever  excursions  it  makes  into  metaphysics  and  ethics, 
comes  back  in  epistemology  to  the  propositions  which  are  attempts  to 
give  some  consistent  meaning  to  the  illusions  and  normal  phenomena 
of  sense  experience  in  connection  with  our  natural  judgments.  Its 
reaction  against  "  common  sense  ''  leads  it  into  forms  of  statement 
which  must  appear  paradoxical  when  they  apparently  or  really  deny 
the  existence  of  an  external  world.  Realism  is  nothing  more  than  a 
protest  against  such  a  denial,  or  language  that  apparently  and  naturally 
implies  it.  It  stands  for  a  clear  and  definite  assertion  of  more  than 
the  subject's  own  states  of  consciousness,  and  hence  denies  solipsism 
which  appears  to  be  the  most  logical  interpretation  of  the  idealistic 
theory  of  "knowledge."  It  is  not  necessary  to  review  here  at  any 
length  this  old  question  further  than  to  remark  that  both  realism  and 
idealism  are  reconcilable  in  the  position  that  external  reality  is  a  fact 
whether  "  experience  "  or  sensation  is  a  measure  of  its  "nature"  or 
not.  Formulas  which  aim  to  correct  the  ignorant  by  conceptions 
quite  as  anomalous  as  the  uncritical  ideas  of  "common  sense  "are 
perplexing  are  sure  to  elicit  counter  corrections,  since  men  are  not 
any  more  likely  to  remain  patient  and  content  with  the  paradoxes  of 


conclusion.  579 

idealism  than  with  the  perplexities  of  realism.  The  weakness  of  re- 
alism has  always  been  its  alliance  with  dogmatism  and  its  unwilling- 
ness to  admit  as  frankly  and  as  fully  as  it  might  the  need  of  critical 
investigation  into  the  judgments  of  the  naive  mind.  Its  strength  lies 
in  the  escape  from  such  scepticism  as  disturbs  the  practical  judgment 
when  it  supposes  that,  idealism  really  interferes  with  the  integrity  of 
convictions  affecting  conduct.  Idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  has  both 
its  strength  and  weakness  in  the  scepticism  which  it  fosters.  Its 
strength  lies  in  the  capacity  to  question  the  dogmatic  accuracy  of 
"  common  sense,"  and  its  weakness  in  the  appearance  of  denying  the 
plain  matters  of  fact,  and  so  of  confusing  the  practical  maxims  of  life 
by  statements  that  seem  to  dispense  with  the  necessity  of  reckoning 
with  an  external  world  at  all.  But  when  it  is  found  that  the  idealist 
regulates  his  actions  on  the  same  assumptions  as  the  realist :  that  his 
theory  only  conceals  a  sceptical  purpose  under  a  more  respectable 
name,  and  that  it  is  mainly  for  philosophic  parade,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  real  difference  between  the  two  schools  of  thought  is  little  or 
nothing  more  than  the  distinction  between  the  aristocratic  and  the 
democratic  mind,  the  idealist  being  the  former  and  the  realist  the  latter. 
The  philosophic  distinction  is  only  another  form  of  the  social  chasm 
between  those  who  do  and  those  who  do  not  correct  their  primitive 
ideas,  intelligent  criticism  and  scepticism  being  on  the  side  of  idealism 
and  a  tendency  to  faith  and  dogmatism  on  the  side  of  realism.  There 
is  no  other  reason  however,  for  the  persistent  hostility  between  the 
two  modes  of  thought. 

It  is  in  the  ethical  field  that  the  general  conception  of  idealism  has 
the  advantage,  not  as  a  sceptical  doctrine,  but  as  a  name  for  the  im- 
portance of  ideals  against  subservience  to  sense  experience.  This  is 
caused,  not  by  the  unquestioned  truth  of  its  epistemological  theory,  but 
by  the  good  fortune  that  scepticism  and  idealism  are  embodied  in  the 
same  term  :  for  there  is  no  special  connection  between  the  critical  scep- 
ticism of  idealism  against  realism  and  ethical  idealism,  except  that  any 
reconstruction  of  ethics  will  involve  attention  to  subjective  considera- 
tions. Ideals,  however,  are  quite  compatible  with  the  most  naive  real- 
ism of  the  epistemological  type.  Realism  in  this  comparison  comes  to 
mean  fact  or  things  as  they  are,  and  idealism  the  things  as  they  ought  to 
be.  There  is  no  necessary  relation  between  these  two  points  of  view 
and  the  epistemological  antitheses  under  the  same  terms.  It  has  been 
usual,  of  course,  to  connect  them  by  implication ;  to  regard  ethical 
realism  as  a  logical  consequence  of  the  epistemological,  and  ethical 
idealism  as  the  consequence  of  the  epistemological.     But  I  must  con- 


5 So  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sider  this  an  illusion.  I  concede  the  fact  of  this  historical  association, 
which  inevitably  gives  the  meaning  to  the  terms  that  this  logical  con- 
nection implies,  and  I  might  even  go  farther  and  concede  that  the  rela- 
tion has  many  natural  affiliations.  But  they  are  not  of  that  sort  which 
has  a  logical  necessity,  as  one  of  them  concerns  how  we  **  know"  and 
the  other  the  relative  values  of  what  we  "  know."  The  problem  of 
epistemology  is  such  that  the  opposition  between  the  affirmation  and 
denial  of  naive  conceptions  of  external  reality  does  not  imply  a 
similar  antithesis  between  facts  and  ideals,  or  what  is  and  what  ought 
to  be.  It  must  be  remembered  also  that  the  traditions  and  teaching  of 
idealism  link  it  with  one  notion  of  objective  reality,  though  it  abstracts 
from  sense  conceptions  in  the  formation  of  that  idea,  and  this  fact  of 
its  relation  to  a  supersensible  reality  shows  that  it  has  not  wholly  es- 
caped the  real  which  it  is  supposed  to  antagonize,  and  critical  exami- 
nation of  it  will  reveal  the  fact  that  it  does  not  even  escape  the  ugly 
features  of  that  real  which  it  appears  so  much  to  fear.  Ethical  ideal- 
ism may  not  require  any  objective  reality  at  all.  It  may  represent 
nothing  more  than  a  discrimination  of  values  within  the  area  of  sub- 
jective experience,  in  which  the  higher  culture  of  intelligence  and 
conscience  is  sharply  drawn  off  against  the  inferior  phenomena  of 
sense.  But  there  is  also  nothing  in  this  that  necessarily  antagonizes 
the  boldest  metaphysics  of  "  common  sense"  realism,  or  the  coarsest 
materialism.  The  temperate  and  rational  habits  of  Epicurus  are  proof 
of  this.  It  is  the  man  that  determines  the  ideal  and  not  a  metaphysical 
or  epistemological  theory.  We  may  admire  and  obey  all  the  higher 
"  spiritual"  ideals  and  impulses,  but  consider  that  they  are  mere  at- 
tachments to  a  nucleus  of  matter  and  its  functions.  There  is  no  philo- 
sophic monopoly  of  the  influences  that  make  for  progress.  Our  theo- 
ries are  after  thoughts  of  our  ideals  to  defend  them  and  do  not  make 
them.  Idealism  is  not  the  only  shelter  for  metaphysics  and  morality  ; 
nor  is  realism  unexposed  to  similar  limitations.  Both  doctrines  are 
good  enough  for  a  certain  kind  of  logic  chopping  where  we  have  once 
learned  the  abstractions  that  they  embody,  but  they  never  serve  to 
make  intelligible  the  rich  content  of  life  to  any  who  have  not  experi- 
enced it  in  all  its  exuberance  and  fascinating  wealth.  They  are  rather 
mere  devices  for  saving  inexperienced  minds  from  the  trouble  of  think- 
ing. Inspiration  and  education  cannot  be  produced  by  dialectic  varia- 
tions upon  refined  abstractions  like  these.  The  full  measure  of  experi- 
ence and  contact  with  facts  are  the  only  resource  for  obtaining  what 
philosophy,  without  any  due  sense  of  humor,  has  allowed  to  petrify  into 
these   mere  fossils  of  truth.     Skeletons  may  be  testimony  to  the  exis- 


CONCLUSION.  581 

tence  of  life  that  once  was,  and  only  the  genius  of  men  like  Agassiz  or 
Cuvier  can  reproduce  from  such  relics  even  an  outline  of  the  tissues  and 
functions  that  played  their  drama  there  in  the  past,  and  in  the  same  way 
it  will  require  genius  in  literature  to  discover  any  evidence  of  former 
life  in  philosophic  theories  like  idealism  and  realism.  These  are  only 
names  for  dead  issues,  if  they  are  made  any  more  comprehensive  than 
the  necessity,  one  of  them,  for  inoculating  dogmatism  with  a  healthy 
scepticism  when  this  dogmatism  attaches  itself  to  realism,  and  the  other, 
for  tempering  scepticism  with  a  healthy  faith  in  human  faculty  when  it  is 
tempted  by  extravagances  in  the  field  of  idealism.  But  even  to  do  this 
they  must  be  in  master  hands.  They  will  not  effect  it  by  any  process 
of  parotting  philosophic  phraseology,  but  only  by  living  through  all 
their  details  the  facts  which  happen  to  get  a  concentrated  form  in 
these  terms. 

For  this  reason  I  feel  no  temptations  to  share  in  the  universal  preju- 
dice of  this  age  for  declaring  that,  whatever  one's  philosophy  may  be, 
it  shall  be  called  idealistic.  The  nauseating  habit  of  assuming  that 
one  must  make  his  peace  with  the  complacent  dogmatism  of  Kanto- 
Hegelian  idealism  by  protesting  that  he  appreciates  it,  when  in  fact  he 
either  does  not  understand  it  or  must  perforce  attack  it  as  an  evidence 
of  mental  virility,  is  a  spectacle  that  tempts  one  to  rebellion,  if  only  to 
save  philosophy  from  stagnation  in  phraseology  wholly  unadapted  to 
the  wants  of  the  age.  If  the  fashion  for  realism  were  as  prevalent  and 
as  dogmatic  the  same  duty  would  exist  as  the  condition  of  saving  phi- 
losophy from  another  and  perhaps  more  unintelligible  scholasticism. 
Intellectual  dry  rot  can  be  prevented  only  by  liberal  infusions  from  the 
spirit  of  contradiction,  "der  Geist  der  stets  verneint."  When  phi- 
losophy can  only  mouth  its  doctrines  in  stereotyped  phrases  having  no 
adaptability  to  changing  experience,  it  can  be  appreciated  only  by 
those  who  have  first  been  initiated  and  its  influence  does  not  extend 
beyond  that  inner  circle.  The  value  of  abstractions  to  this  body  of  the 
faithful  for  economy  and  abbreviation  need  not  be  disputed.  Such 
economy  and  a  technical  mode  of  expression  are  needed  in  all  the  pro- 
founder  work  of  the  sciences,  no  matter  how  inaccessible  to  the  popu- 
lar mind.  But  science  always  contrives  to  explain  its  meaning  in  the 
vernacular  when  it  is  necessary  to  instruct  the  public.  But  whatever 
defense  philosophy  may  have  for  obscurity  within  the  society  of  its 
devotees,  it  is  recreant  to  a  wider  duty  when  it  confines  its  humane  ob- 
jects to  the  few,  especially  in  a  democracy.  In  aristocratic  civiliza- 
tions the  demand  on  its  condescension  is  not  so  great.  The  citizens  of 
such  a  society  are  among  its  votaries,  or  at  least  its  intelligent  auditors, 


582  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  the  area  of  its  influence  and  usefulness  is  correspondingly  circum- 
scribed. The  rest  of  the  community  is  governed,  not  reasoned  with. 
The  general  ideas  that  determine  the  thought  and  action  of  the  whole 
are  in  possession  of  the  rulers  and  they  have  the  freedom  to  give  them 
effectiveness,  while  the  ruled  are  not  asked  or  required  to  understand, 
but  to  obey.  Their  action  is  regulated  by  faith  or  fear,  not  by  reason, 
and  the  duty  of  philosophy  to  construct  does  not  extend  beyond  the  few 
who  hold  the  reins  of  power,  except  as  it  is  at  liberty  to  perform  a 
work  of  grace  to  the  many  and  strengthen  the  influences  that  limit  the 
abuses  of  power.  In  aristocratic  communities  it  requires  only  to 
moderate  the  temptations  and  licenses  of  authority  by  inculcating  all 
those  ideas  that  make  for  prudence,  culture,  and  humanity,  in  the  ex- 
ercise and  application  of  it.  But  in  democratic  civilizations  it  is 
neither  secure  in  its  recognition  nor  equal  to  its  responsibilities,  if  its 
oracles  are  obscure  or  unintelligible,  since,  as  always,  it  must  appeal 
to  the  rulers  for  effect  and  these  are  now  the  multitude.  A  wide  area 
of  influence  is  demanded  of  it.  It  has  to  persuade  those  whom  an 
aristocratic  society  may  govern.  Science  has  condescended  to  do  this 
while  it  preserves  its  technical  work  for  the  initiated.  But  if  phi- 
losophy retires,  as  it  seems  to  have  done  in  our  day,  into  the  narrow 
circle  of  the  few,  it  loses  its  power  to  control  the  trend  of  thought 
which  governs  and  must  govern  a  democratic  people.  Epistemology 
and  technical  metaphysics  have  neither  interest  nor  influence  for  this 
class,  unless  adapted  to  the  common  understanding  and  the  deepest  in- 
terests affecting  life  and  action.  In  such  a  state  the  whole  field  that 
was  once  the  province  of  "  divine  philosophy"  is  turned  over  to  litera- 
ture which  never  fails  to  make  itself  intelligible  in  plain  speech  or  to 
eschew  the  language  of  mere  dialectic  and  logic  chopping  when  it  en- 
deavors to  convey  its  thoughts.  Circumlocution  and  elasticity  of  style 
are  better  than  technical  shibboleths.  Philosophy  must  condescend  to 
make  its  idealism  or  realism  accessible  to  the  general  consciousness, 
if  it  expects  to  survive  in  democratic  times  as  a  moral  and  spiritual 
leaven  in  the  world.  Its  formula  cannot  stop  with  a  scholastic  confes- 
sion of  faith,  but  must  be  explicable  and  intelligible  in  forms  clear 
enough  to  determine  the  ideas  that  animate  the  common  mind  and 
will.  Loss  of  place  and  influence  will  be  the  price  paid  for  any  fail- 
ure to  accomplish  this  result.  Even  Kant  in  his  time  had  to  complain 
that  it  was  neglected,  and  it  is  much  worse  in  this  age,  mainly  because 
it  has  no  message  to  mankind  at  large.  It  is  more  the  function  of 
philosophy  than  any  other  discipline,  except  literature,  to  cultivate 
adaptability  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  wants  of  man.     It  may  be 


CONCLUSION.  583 

accorded  perfect  liberty  among  its  adepts  for  abbreviation  and  technical 
discussion,  just  as  are  chemistry  and  higher  physics.  But  this  is  no 
reason  why  its  oracles  cannot  be  interpreted  in  the  vernacular  when 
the  justification  for  its  existence  demands  this.  Its  decline  in  the 
university  life  of  modern  democracy  is  the  consequence  of  this  failure 
to  have  a  mission  for  the  majority  who  do  the  governing.  The  fault, 
of  course,  may  be  as  much  in  those  who  have  to  be  taught  as  in  those 
who  teach.  There  may  be  no  willingness  to  accept  a  philosophic 
gospel  of  any  kind,  and  this  is  certainly  the  disposition  of  the  present 
general  public.  But  the  philosopher  may  also  have  no  gospel  to  teach, 
as  seems  to  be  the  case  since  Kant  who  banished  all  interesting  in- 
tellectual problems  from  legitimate  speculation  and  reflection,  leaving 
everlasting  talk  about  '*  experience  "  and  "  consciousness  "  as  the  only 
subject  left  for  the  "  queen  of  the  sciences."  The  mission  which  it  can 
perform  depends  partly  upon  its  character  and  mostly  upon  the  genu- 
inely human  interests  that  pervade  and  inspire  its  work.  It  will  re- 
main forever  obscure  and  useless,  unless  it  can  touch  the  world's  heart 
with  some  sympathy  and  its  mind  with  some  vision  of  general  truth  and 
duty.  It  cannot  rely  solely  upon  controversial  dialectic  dividing  specu- 
lation into  two  sharply  defined  theories  one  of  which  is  to  be  attacked 
and  the  other  defended,  with  no  reconstruction  of  truth  within  the 
reach  of  practical  life.  Unless  it  succeeds  in  effecting  this  it  will  re- 
tain no  place  or  function  in  a  democratic  civilization  which  has  to  be 
moved  from  within  instead  of  from  without. 

It  is  the  tyrannical  influence  of  our  earlier  and  unreflective  concep- 
tions upon  our  later  development  that  is  the  primary  source  of  all  our 
trouble  in  philosophy,  and  the  controversy  between  realism  and  ideal- 
ism is  only  one  illustration  of  the  feud  that  extends  over  the  whole  field 
of  speculation  regarding  the  cosmos.  In  our  earlier  experience  we 
make  no  attempt  to  give  unity  and  consistency  to  our  ideas.  We  take 
them  as  they  come  and  ask  no  questions.  The  accident  of  a  confusing 
and  misunderstood  situation  may  wholly  distort  what  the  larger  experi- 
ence of  the  race  has  reduced  to  a  common  datum.  Thus  Locke  and 
Berkeley  changed  the  meaning  of  the  term  "  idea"  and  confused  the 
general  drift  of  philosophic  thought.  Epicurus  adopted  the  concept  of 
"  matter"  for  the  permanent  in  the  cosmos,  while  Plato  had  used  it  for 
the  transient.  And  subsequent  thought  has  followed  the  materialists 
in  all  their  essential  conceptions  of  it  as  a  substance.  The  attempt  to 
correct  these  distortions,  after  they  have  become  fixed  in  our  habits  of 
thought,  and  when  their  inconsistency  with  the  general  view  of  lan- 
guage has  been  discovered,  causes  a  wrench  in  our  feelings,  because  the 


5S4  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

relation  between  conceptions  and  language  is  so  fixed  by  association  that 
the  stream  of  thought  is  a  victim  of  it,  and  we  can  suppress  its  causal 
influence  only  by  adopting  terms  that  do  not  recall  up  a  rejected  idea 
against  the  truth  that  is  wanted.  We  have  to  overcome  the  automatic 
habits  of  our  first  conceptions  by  the  formation  of  others  out  of  data 
which  will  not  instigate  the  occurrence  of  the  earlier  series,  and  it 
often  seems  as  if  the  attitude  of  opposition  to  the  past  was  the  only 
security  against  its  domination.  Our  progress  away  from  this  past 
depends  upon  our  ability  to  rescue  our  minds  from  the  thralls  of  mere 
habit  and  the  association  of  ideas.  In  many,  perhaps  most  cases,  this 
control  can  be  effected  only  by  changing  the  terms  of  our  thought. 
Only  a  few  can  disenchant  the  old  phrases  of  their  illusions  and  trans- 
form them  by  transfiguration  into  the  embodiment  of  new  achieve- 
ments. It  is  this  situation  that  always  gives  the  charm  to  idealism. 
It  is  the  mind's  liberation  from  the  naive  possession  of  uncritical  ideas. 
Realism  is  the  natural  conviction  of  the  untrained  soul,  whether  it 
rises  or  not  to  the  dignity  of  a  theory,  and  when  it  is  necessary  to  cor- 
rect the  aberrations  of  that  stage  of  culture,  it  is  not  easy  to  give  the 
earlier  ideas  and  their  expression  the  color  and  tone  of  a  new  rapture. 
The  discovery  that  our  minds  are  as  important  agencies  in  thought 
and  action  as  the  real  world,  especially  when  we  have  to  conquer  the 
latter  for  our  own  ends,  and  the  enthusiasm  which  the  discovery 
awakens  may  naturally  enough  obscure  the  truth  of  realism  for  the 
moment  while  we  emphasize  the  functions  of  thought  in  culture  and 
achievement.  But  the  time  comes  when  idealism  also  gets  so  far 
away  from  reality  that  its  dreaming  can  be  checked  only  by  a  return 
to  objective  facts. 

There  is  a  feature  in  common  between  epistemological  and  ethical 
idealism  which  was  passed  by  in  the  consideration  of  their  points  of 
difference  and  indifference.  It  is  the  fact  that  they  both  represent  the 
subjective  or  psychological  point  of  view  in  the  study  of  the  world. 
They  are  both  anthropocentric  as  opposed  to  the  cosmocentric  position 
for  estimating  experience.  The  cosmocentric  represented  the  domi- 
nant tendency  of  Greek  thought  and  generally  affiliates  most  easily 
with  what  passes  for  realism.  The  anthropocentric  point  of  view  is 
the  modern  and  to  some  extent  the  Christian  position.  The  Greek 
felt  himself  under  the  restraints  of  a  remorseless  power  that  he  could 
not  love  and  was  reluctantly  forced  to  obey.  He  was  always  sighing 
for  a  freedom  that  he  could  not  possess  and  had  not  the  courage  to 
extort.  The  contemplative  life  was  his  paradise,  whether  in  his 
mythology  he  placed  it  in  the  past  of   man,  or  in  his   philosophy  he 


CONCLUSION.  5S5 

placed  it  in  the  life  of  the  gods.  Exemption  from  toil  and  pain  was 
his  principal  desire  and  the  fear  of  the  inexorable  power  of  fate  kept 
him  either  perpetually  complaining  against  nature  or  cultivating  the 
virtues  of  a  Stoic  as  a  refuge  from  despair  and  as  affording  him  his 
only  hope  of  meriting  the  character  of  a  soldier  and  a  man.  He 
dreaded  power  that  restrained  him,  and  he  could  not  learn,  as  in  the 
prayer  of  Cleanthes,  to  reverence  it  for  any  benignities,  but  bestow£cL 
upon  it  a  resigned  and  melancholy  respect.  The  ugly  spectre  of  4&L 
was  simply  the  consciousness  of  an  unbending  law  that  gave  him  no 
room  for  the  play  of  freedom.  His  love  of  the  aristocratic  and  con- 
templative life  kept  him  crying  for  a  free  bounty  from  the  universe, 
and  work  to  win  his  blessings  only  appeared  to  offend  the  dignity  of 
his  nature.  It  took  a  democratic  civilization  to  supplant  the  contem- 
plative by  the  active  life,  though  this  does  not  always  clear  away  the 
realistic  sense  of  nature's  power  to  make  submission  a  disagreeable 
virtue.  It  only  equalizes  the  struggle  while  it  offers  less  stimulus  to 
rise  above  it.  But  the  oppression  of  external  restraint  upon  a  beauty- 
loving  Greek,  also  more  passionately  desirous  of  freedom  than  any 
modern  man,  and  as  fond  of  nature  as  he  was  conscious  of  its  limita- 
tions and  forbidding  aspects,  could  only  foster  that  temper  of  mind 
which  lies  between  defiance  and  obedience,  a  condition  which  is  partly 
pathos,  partly  courage  and  partly  despair,  and  uncolored  by  any  of  the 
features  of  hope  and  faith.  The  revolt  against  mythology  had  carried 
away  every  vestige  of  the  human  in  the  cosmos,  and  it  required  Chris- 
tianity to  restore  it  in  any  form  whatever.  But  to  the  Greek  there  was 
no  hope  of  gaining  anything  by  a  struggle  against  nature,  though  a 
resigned  obedience  might  lessen  the  pain  he  feared  and  win  as  much 
virtue  as  was  possible  in  a  condition  of  slavery. 

But  idealism,  which  turns  the  mind  away  from  the  tyranny  of 
nature  to  the  confidence  of  man  in  his  own  power  to  fix  limits  to  the 
restraints  about  him,  to  conquer  nature  while  he  obeys  it,  puts  a  new 
face  on  things.  Man  discovers  by  it  what  is  in  himself  to  produce  the 
very  results  which,  in  his  lazier  moods,  he  asks  as  an  unearned  bounty 
of  providence.  The  attention  is  turned  from  the  outer  world  of  in- 
flexible power  to  the  inner  world  of  consciousness  and  the  freedom  of 
the  will  to  turn  nature  to  account  as  well  as  to  practice  submission. 
Man  can  thus  come  to  respect  himself,  whether  he  does  nature  or  not, 
and  to  secure  his  happiness  bv  conquest  instead  of  by  mere  good  for- 
tune. Ethical  idealism  is  hardly  possible  until  consciousness  is  turned 
upon  itself  and  finds  there  the  will  and  the  way  to  overcome  all  ex- 
ternal obstacles  and  to  make  cosmic  law  serve  his  own  ends.     What 


586  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ought  to  be  can  hardly  be  the  result  of  idle  looking  at  things.  The 
spectator  of  the  cosmos  can  only  enjoy  what  it  casually  brings  him. 
The  man  of  action  may  force  it  to  serve  him.  The  consciousness  of 
one's  power  to  make  his  fortune  is  the  revelation  of  introspection  and 
the  victory  is  the  fruit  of  courage  to  triumph  over  the  influences  that 
tend  to  despair  or  that  repress  self-confidence.  Idealism  thus,  in  so  far 
as  it  gives  a  man  command  of  himself  and  discovers  a  freedom  which 
he  does  not  dream  of  securing  in  his  habit  of  passive  obedience  to  in- 
exorable laws,  shows  that  happiness  is  made,  not  found,  and  to  that 
extent  marks  both  a  superiority  and  an  advance  on  that  realism  which 
is  content  to  be  the  slave  of  circumstance.  Idealism  may  be  subject  to 
abuse  like  all  other  impulses  that  originate  in  weak  human  nature.  It 
may  be  followed  by  pride  and  rebelliousness  where  humility  and  resig- 
nation were  the  characteristics  before.  But  whatever  restraints  expe- 
rience may  put  upon  its  aspirations,  it  is  the  first  step  in  man's  dis- 
covery of  his  superiority  over  nature  and  of  his  prospect  for  liberation, 
while  realism  is  the  check  that  would  keep  Icarus  from  losing  his 
wings  in  an  inglorious  flight  toward  the  sun  and  away  from  the  earth. 

Denn  mit  Gottern  For  with  the  gods 

Soil  sich  nicht  messen  Should  no  man 

Irgend  ein  Mensch.  Measure  himself. 

Hebt  er  sich  aufwarts  If  he  reach  upward 

Und  beriihrt  And  touches  the  stars 

Mie  dem  Scheitel  die  Sterne,  With  his  high  head, 

Nirgends  haften  dann  Never  will  he  fix 

Die  unsichern  Sohlen,  His  insecure  feet, 

Und  mit  ihm  spielen  And  with  him  will  play 

Wolken  und  Winde.  The  clouds  and  the  winds. 

Steht  er  mit  festen  Stands  he  with  fixed 

Markigen  Knochen  Bold  and  firm  foot 

Auf  der  wohlgegriindeten  On  the  well  based 

Dauerenden  Erde,  Solid  old  earth, 

Reicht  er  nicht  auf,  Reaches  not  upward, 

Nur  mit  der  Eiche  Only  with  the  oak 

Oder  der  Rebe  Or  the  weak  vine 

Sich  zu  vergleichen.  Himself  to  compare. 

In  the  epistemological  field  idealism  performs  the  service  which 
scepticism  must  always  give  to  progress.  It  disturbs  the  equanimity 
of  indolent  and  unprogressive  temperaments  and  offers  a  rational  ex- 
cuse for  ignoring  tradition  and  prejudice.  It  is  not  often  that  scepti- 
cism can  receive  any  credit  for  merit  equal  to  that  of  faith,  but  it  de- 
serves this  consideration  and  the  fact  should  not  be  ignored.  It  will, 
of  course,  not  be  respected  by  those  who  are  afraid  of  change  and 


CONCLUSION.  587 

progressive  development.  But  when  history  comes  to  cast  up  its  ac- 
counts, scepticism  will  have  a  place  assigned  it  in  the  moral  salvation 
of  the  race,  if  it  does  nothing  more  than  to  clear  man  of  his  illusions. 
Though  it  may  not  supply  or  prove  any  positive  doctrine,  it  is  an  effec- 
tive solvent  of  all  the  dogmatisms  that  base  themselves  upon  an  uncritical 
confidence  in  our  sense  perceptions.  But  the  fundamental  weakness 
of  idealism  as  a  system  of  scepticism  resting  on  the  phenomenal  limits 
of  knowledge  is  that  it  expects  to  draw  positive  conclusions  from  these 
limitations.  This  can  not  be  done.  Conclusions  are  an  extension  of 
knowledge  when  they  are  fruitful  of  positive  results,  never  a  curtail- 
ment of  it.  Scepticism  clips  the  wings  of  fancy  and  holds  reason  to 
experience,  and  where  idealism  coincides  with  the  sceptical  limitations 
of  knowledge,  without  allowing  for  any  elasticity  and  progress  in  the 
data  of  it,  and  without  admitting  some  affiliation  with  the  postulates 
of  realism,  it  forfeits  the  right  to  suggest  any  "  spiritual"  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  universe.  It  cr.n  only  play  the  part  of  an  iconoclast 
against  dogmatism  and  overconfidence  in  nai've  views  of  things.  But 
until  it  makes  its  peace  with  the  fundamental  assumptions  of  realism, 
which  it  is  too  ready  to  treat  as  a  mortal  enemy,  it  can  offer  no  gospel 
but  doubt  to  either  metaphysics  or  religion,  though  the  men  that  adopt 
its  position  may  still  show  allegiance  to  ethical  and  aesthetic  inspira- 
tion for  ideals  reaching  beyond  the  pleasures  of  sense.  But  the  idealist 
can  effect  even  this  much  only  by  abandoning  mere  logical  play  and 
dogmas  quite  as  absurd  and  unintelligible  as  the  quidities  of  scholastic 
theology,  even  though  their  hidden  meaning  be  true,  and  making  its 
message  as  clear  and  concrete  as  the  facts  on  which  it  rests,  imbue  the 
general  consciousness  that  rules  a  democracy  with  some  realizable 
ideal  which  can  have  the  scientific  strength  of  a  philosophy  and  the 
motive  power  of  a  religion.  Instead  of  this  those  who  might  be  the 
oracles  of  truth  are  hunting  about  the  cerements  of  Kant  and  Hegel 
for  life. 

Dwellers  in  dreamland, 

Drinking  delusion 

Out  of  the  empty 

Skull  of  the  past. 

Whatever  philosophy  we  have  must  be  the  product  of  science,  if  I 
may  distinguish  between  them  for  the  moment,  whether  we  choose  to 
call  it  idealism  or  realism  or  both  or  neither.  We  shall  not  discover 
it  in  the  perpetual  exposition  of  past  systems  any  more  than  religion 
will  find  its  truth  in  tradition  and  mythology.  It  is  a  perpetual  con- 
struction of  present  experience,  incorporating  only  so  much  of  the  past 


5 88  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

as  is  perennial  and  recasting  the  formulas  that  gather  about  them,  like 
a  ship  its  barnacles,  the  growths  of  false  interpretation  and  associ- 
ation. The  days  of  a  priori  speculation  are  gone,  not  because  it  is 
wholly  false  or  useless,  but  because  we  have  adopted  a  standard  of 
truth  which  places  more  value  on  inductive  than  upon  deductive 
methods  and  because  the  limits  of  a  priori  speculation  are  so  quickly 
reached  that  the  only  hope  for  further  progress  lies  in  experience  with 
its  discovery  of  the  data  for  whatever  extension  of  knowledge  is  pos- 
sible. The  mistake  of  the  Kantian  lies  in  placing  so  much  stress  upon 
the  necessity  of  a  priori  truth  of  some  kind  that  can  never  be  more 
than  abstract  and  in  emphasizing  so  much  the  limits  of  knowledge  to 
experience  that  he  creates  the  impression  that  experience  has  as  de- 
cided limits  for  its  matter,  that  is,  its  facts,  as  it  has  for  its  form, 
namely,  the  sensory  mode  of  obtaining  it.  It  is  not  the  form  but  the 
content  or  matter  of  knowledge  that  has  the  chief  interest  for  man. 
The  idealist^should  remember  that  their  great  protagonist  recognized 
that  experience  had  a  content  as  well  as  a  "form"  and  that  he  did  not 
definitely  indicate  any  limits  to  this  content  but  only  to  the  "form" 
which  it  should  take,  though  he  was  silent  on  the  actual  elasticity  of 
this  content.  Now  if  the  matter  of  experience  have  no  limits  but  those 
of  the  actual  facts  up  to  date,  what  is  there  to  prevent  the  accumula- 
tion of  data  that  will  necessitate  more  than  can  be  deduced  from  the 
formal  conditions  of  experience  or  from  any  previous  experience  not 
implicating  this  new  result?  It  is  in  this  discovery  of  new  data  that 
science  does  its  work  and  supplies  both  the  motive  and  the  matter  for  all 
philosophy  except  dogmatism  and  tradition.  Our  progress  lies  more 
in  the  way  we  conceive  the  truth  than  it  does  in  the  formulas  for  em- 
bodying it,  and  hence  in  the  experience  that  makes  abstractions  intel- 
ligible rather  than  in  the  verbal  consistency  of  our  present  with  the 
past.  There  is  a  great  value  in  having  truths  that  survive  revolution- 
ary change,  and  such  truths  are  easily  stated  and  understood,  but  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  adapt  the  changes  of  time  and  progress  to  them,  a  pro- 
cedure extremely  necessary  in  order  to  utilize  what  is  permanent  in 
practical  life.  Philosophy  must  therefore  be  the  expression  of  the 
general  results  of  knowledge  in  each  age  with  the  increments  that  have 
been  won  by  new  discovery.  An  idealism  or  realism  that  cannot  ex- 
tend its  meaning  to  these  new  conditions  and  wants  is  destined  to 
perish  in  the  bogs  of  illusion  and  obscurity. 

The  same  general  attitude  that  has  been  shown  toward  the  contro- 
versy between  idealism  and  realism  can  be  taken  in  regard  to  that  be- 
tween spiritualism  and  materialism.     The  reader  may  have  observed 


CONCLUSION.  5S9 

that  I  did  not  conclude  the  chapters  on  these  two  metaphysical  theories 
with  any  decisive  verdict  for  or  against  either  of  them.  There  were 
several  reasons  for  this  reservation.  They  all  grow,  however,  out  of 
one  fact.  This  is  the  circumstance  that  there  is  no  human  interest  in 
the  controversy  between  the  two  theories  except  the  question  of  sur- 
vival after  death.  The  difficulties  of  any  assured  conviction  on  this 
issue  creates  indifference  to  the  merely  scientific  or  philosophic  prob- 
lem that  may  not  guarantee  or  exclude  survival.  Besides  the  question 
of  the  existence  of  a  soul  has  been  so  complicated  with  assumptions 
about  its  nature  that  the  matter  of  its  survival,  in  addition  to  doubts 
from  the  want  of  evidence,  is  affected  by  all  the  doubts  connected  with 
the  problem  of  the  soul's  nature  which  might  not  guarantee  survival 
of  personal  identity  when  that  nature  was  decided.  This'  means  that 
there  are  always  two  problems  before  investigation ;  the  one  concerns 
the  existence  of  a  subject  other  than  the  brain  to  explain  conscious- 
ness, and  the  other  concerns  the  persistence  of  this  personal  conscious- 
ness after  the  dissolution  of  the  bodily  organism.  This  situation 
makes  it  prudent  not  to  press  a  conclusion  too  urgently  until  the  one 
question  is  separated  from  the  other,  and  as  the  decisive  settlement  of 
it  cannot  be  determined  short  of  the  proof  of  survival,  which  mere 
philosophy  cannot  supply,  the  only  proper  course  in  philosophic  dis- 
cussion is  to  leave  the  issue  where  that  method  must  leave  it,  namely, 
in  the  balance  between  arguments  whose  value  is  dependent  wholly 
upon  the  discovery  of  facts  to  give  them  cogency  and  conclusiveness. 
Morever,  from  what  has  been  said  about  "matter"  and  "spirit" 
in  the  discussion  about  materialism  and  spiritualism,  and  in  the  chapter 
on  the  existence  of  God,  it  ought  to  be  apparent  that  I  have  no  such 
animosities  toward  materialism  as  would  lead  me  to  neglect  the  force 
of  the  facts  in  its  favor,  and  no  such  allegiance  to  the  term  "spirit" 
or  spiritualism  as  would  lead  me  to  expect  any  better  salvation  from  a 
bad  philosophy  than  I  might  get  from  "  matter."  We  cannot  presume 
that  one  of  the  theories  shall  be  defended  and  then  seek  for  the  evi- 
dence without  also  admitting  the  difficulties  on  either  side  of  the  issue. 
Apart  from  that  conception  of  "  matter"  which  is  formed  from  its  sen- 
sible manifestations  and  the  test  of  it  by  gravity,  there  is  no  reason  for 
using  the  term  "spirit"  even  when  we  have  demonstrated  that  the 
brain  cannot  explain  consciousness.  In  its  widest  import  the  concep- 
tion of  matter  has  been  so  refined  and  the  capacities  represented  by  it 
have  been  so  extended  beyond  anything  supposed  by  ancient  materi- 
alism, that  there  can  be  no  objection  to  assuming,  so  far  as  mere  scien- 
tific explanation  is  concerned,  that  the  subject  of  consciousness  is  the 


590  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

brain,  if  the  evidence  justifies  it,  or  that  it  is  some  form  of  refined 
"  matter"  or  ether,  if  the  evidence  is  against  the  organism.  In  fact, 
the  term  "  matter"  is  so  abstract  that  it  is  useless  for  any  purposes  that 
could  not  as  well  be  served  by  any  other  conception,  except  that 
"matter,"  with  its  associations,  can  best  perpetuate  the  scientific 
spirit  and  a  rational  continuity  with  the  past  saner  efforts  of  man  to 
understand  the  universe.  But  in  so  far  as  metaphysics  and  science  are 
concerned,  it  makes  no  difference  whether  we  adopt  materialism  or 
spiritualism,  unless  we  mean  to  declare  an  attitude  on  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  On  the  one  hand,  the  spiritualist  has  so  long  insisted  that  the 
"soul"  is  spaceless  and  has  kept  philosophy  thereby  in  such  an  im- 
possible world  for  science  and  "  common  sense,"  that  it  would  be  easy 
to  lead  a  revolt  to  the  Epicurean  conception  of  it  with  our  ethereal  con- 
ception of  matter  before  us,  and  so  leave  to  the  problem  of  evidence 
the  solution  of  its  survival  and  not  the  question  of  what  the  soul 
shall  be  called.  On  the  other  hand,  the  materialist,  not  disguising 
from  himself  the  absence  of  evidence  for  either  survival,  as  he  esti- 
mated this  evidence,  or  for  any  subject  but  the  organism,  has  not  ob- 
served the  process  of  extension  and  refinement  that  have  gone  on  in  his 
conception  of  matter  until  it  might  make  a  good  substitute  for 
"spirit."  The  only  thing  that  has  remained  untouched  by  change  is 
the  opposition  between  the  two  schools  on  the  question  of  immortality 
or  survival  of  death.  On  that  question  the  materialist  has  shown  most 
of  the  science  and  most  of  the  courage,  and  the  spiritualist  most  of  the 
sentiment  and  most  of  the  fear.  They  have  divided  intolerance  of  each 
other  about  equally  between  them.  But  on  the  mere  metaphysical 
question  as  to  the  nature  of  the  mental  subject,  when  it  is  agreed  that 
it  is  not  the  organism,  there  is  no  longer  any  but  reasons  of  association 
for  using  the  term  "spirit"  at  all.  All  the  problems  of  philosophy 
and  religion  can  be  solved  by  the  proper  use  of  the  term  "  matter." 
The  only  objection  to  this  position  is  the  obstinacy  of  the  materialist, 
who  does  not  often  examine  his  conceptions  critically  and  who,  in  spite 
of  his  changes  in  the  idea  of  "  matter,"  still  passionately  insists  that 
his  doctrine  is  the  same  as  ever,  when  it  is  only  in  the  psychological 
field  that  this  consistency  remains,  and  even  this  only  in  that  concep- 
tion of  the  problem  which  denies  a  future  life  for  consciousness.  But 
apart  from  this  question  of  fact,  or  of  facts  that  necessitate  the  assump- 
tion, there  are  none  but  verbal  and  associative  reasons  for  continuing 
the  antithesis  between  the  conceptions  of  "  matter"  and  "  spirit." 

The  real  opposition  between  materialism  and  spiritualism  turns  on 
a  matter  of  fact  and  not  of  metaphysics.     It  was,  of  course,  originally  a 


CONCLUSION.  591 

resort  to  metaphysics  by  both  parties  to  prove  a  real  or  supposed  fact  in 
regard  to  survival,  but  the  rise  of  scientific  method  discredited  a  priori 
metaphysics  as  a  means  of  proving  any  future  facts  whatever,  except 
hypothetically  on  the  same  conditions,  and  left  philosophy  only  the 
power  to  systematize  the  knowledge  we  have  and  not  to  predict  the 
future  on  any  other  grounds  than  present  experience  of  facts  that  justify 
it.  Science  drew  clearly  the  distinction  between  the  evidential  problem 
in  regard  to  a  future  life  and  the  metaphysical  problem  of  identical  or 
different  subjects  for  physical  and  mental  events.  Both  problems  may 
be  treated  evidentially,  as  they  must  be,  but  the  evidence  in  each  case, 
if  it  is  to  have  the  most  effective  cogency,  and  if  it  goes  beyond  support- 
ing a  mere  possibility  for  independent  subjects,  must  be  of  a  different 
kind  in  each  case,  the  conclusion,  apart  from  the  actual  isolation  of  an 
individual  consciousness  from  the  organism,  being  fairly  well  balanced 
between  the  two  views,  while  any  conclusion  in  favor  of  an  immaterial 
subject  for  consciousness  would  leave  wholly  undecided  the  question  of 
personal  survival  after  death.  All  this  shows  that  there  is  no  adequate 
reason  for  passionate  controversy  between  the  two  schools  on  the 
metaphysical,  but  only  on  the  religious  question  of  fact.  The  passions 
associated  with  this  belief  in  a  future  life  could  well  attach  themselves 
to  the  metaphysical  theories,  as  long  as  they  were  the  only  means  of 
arriving  at  the  desired  conclusion.  But  when  the  problem  became  a 
matter  of  fact  distinct  from  the  mere  existence  of  a  transcerebral  subject 
for  consciousness,  to  be  settled  either  before  the  metaphysical  question 
could  be  answered  or  as  a  condition  of  any  metaphysics  other  than 
materialism  in  some  sense  of  that  term,  the  continuance  of  the  philo- 
sophic controversy  was  an  anachronism  and  had  no  excuse  except  that 
of  intellectual  inertia  or  the  desire  to  evade  new  "issues,  or  the  old  issue 
in  a  new  form.  For  the  problem  of  immortality  is  perennial,  persisting 
with  every  change  of  intellectual  development,  and  divides  human  nature 
far  more  deeply  in  respect  of  temperament  than  in  argument.  These 
temperaments  may  be  called  the  emotional  and  the  scientific.  The  one 
will  not  surrender  and  the  other  does  not  apparently  need  the  belief. 
Their  relation  to  the  doctrine  and  the  various  interests  in  life  as  affected 
by  it  needs  a  careful  analysis. 

The  belief  in  immortality  has  always  been  more  of  a  passion  than  a 
philosophy.  There  have  been  attempts  enough  to  give  it  a  philosophic 
status,  but  only  when  this  method  was  considered  the  criterion  of  truth. 
The  influences  which  have  kept  it  alive  have  in  reality  been  stronger 
than  any  philosophy.  The  belief  originates  in  impulses  which  make 
the  doctrine  one  of  immeasurable  tenacity  and  also  one  of  great  power 


S9Z  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

whether  for  good  or  ill,  because  it  lends  itself  so  easily  to  the  imagi- 
nation for  coloring  it  with  whatever  ideals  our  caprices  may  form,  as 
both  ancient  and  mediaeval  conceptions  abundantly  prove.  It  may  arise 
from  either  of  two  instincts ;  from  the  personal  desire  to  live  and  pro- 
long the  pleasures  of  existence,  or  from  the  philanthropic  and  social  in- 
fluences that  center  in  human  sympathy  and  love.  The  one  is  purely 
egoistic  and  the  other  is  altruistic.  These  influences  may  even  be 
variously  mixed  according  to  the  character  of  the  individual.  But 
neither  of  them,  though  it  keeps  the  passion  alive,  is  anything  like  a 
scientific  or  philosophic  argument,  but  only  a  moral  force  to  be  reck- 
oned with  in  the  adjustment  of  our  attitude  toward  others.  One  of 
them,  the  egoistic,  is  exposed  to  all  the  immoralities  which  a  purely 
personal  interest  in  life  can  inflict  upon  freedom  of  thought,  and  the 
other,  the  altruistic,  to  all  the  sentimentalities  that  concentrate  about 
fine  characters  which  often  have  less  vigor  than  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence requires.  The  belief  has  not  been  an  unmixed  good.  It  did  not 
save  the  middle  ages  from  the  most  frightful  orgies  :  in  fact,  it  might 
be  said  to  have  been  the  primary  cause  of  those  religious  persecutions 
which  rivalled  the  most  sanguinary  cruelties  of  savage  life.  The  trac- 
ing of  the  belief  to  the  most  gentle  and  divine  of  beings  was  not  suffi- 
cient to  restrain  the  most  extraordinary  passion  for  inflicting  pain. 
No  intolerance  was  too  intense  for  its  hatred  of  scepticism  and  liberty 
of  thought  and  worship.  As  if  the  tortures  for  eternity  In  a  marl 
of  burning  sulphur  were  not  enough  for  the  failure  to  assent  to  false 
propositions,  men  must  needs  add  the  same  tortures  to  the  present  life 
on  the  pretext  of  saving  a  man's  soul  against  his  own  will  and  power 
which  were  taught  by  a  doctrine  of  predestination  to  be  helpless  !  No 
doubt  there  were  often  other  and  associated  influences  at  work,  but 
the  saving  of  the  soul  was  the  pretext  for  the  policy  of  the  state  and 
the  church,  and  ordinary  history  sees  no  other  influence  to  record  than 
the  sacrifice  of  humanity  for  a  belief  without  scientific  or  otherwise 
adequate  credentials.  Its  beneficial  effect  on  the  race  can  be  secured 
only  when  it  is  tempered  by  the  morality  which  is  founded  on  the 
brotherhood  of  man  and  which  is  indifferent  to  the  personal  interest 
of  the  man  who  feels  that  brotherhood.  This  would  indicate  that 
common  terrestrial  morality  is  the  most  important  impulse  of  the  two 
and  the  condition  of  the  other  having  any  value  at  all  for  life.  I  do 
not  deny  its  moral  value  for  the  man  whose  humanity  is  the  first  im- 
pulse of  his  nature.  But  he  is  in  no  need  of  science  or  philosophy  to 
awaken  his  moral  instincts  or  to  support  a  belief  that  gets  all  its  beauty 
from  the  worth  of  virtue  in  a   world  where  its  achievement  is  not 


C  ONCL  USION.  593 

always  the  effect  but  the  cause  of  a  belief  in  a  future  life.  It  gives 
the  moral  and  humane  man  power  to  arouse  higher  ideals  in  others,  but 
it  does  not  insure  the  strength  to  realize  them.  It  is  not  the  mere 
belief  in  survival  that  can  guarantee  morality,  but  the  kind  of  existence 
offered  us  with  a  conception  of  the  relation  between  the  present  and 
the  future.  This  is  apparent  in  the  whole  history  of  philosophic  and 
religious  thought  on  the  subject.  Hence  while  I  do  not  deny  immense 
capacities  for  good  in  the  doctrine  of  immortality  these  are  subject  to 
qualification,  and  I  doubt  whether  we  have  in  history,  when  taken 
alone  and  apart  from  moral  ideals  not  always  created  by  it,  any  satis- 
factory evidence  of  its  beneficial  influence  on  conduct.  Most  men  and 
women,  as  we  can  see  in  the  history  of  the  church,  regulate  their  lives 
by  impulses  that  they  regard  as  natural  and  seek  to  form  that  concep- 
tion of  the  future  which  these  impulses  suggest.  The  chief  impor- 
tance of  the  belief  lies  in  its  support  of  the  relative  values  that  our 
moral  and  intellectual  development  place  upon  consciousness  and  mat- 
ter. But  the  personal  equation  and  the  selfish  motives  which  deter- 
mine or  may  determine  our  present  lives  may  always  associate  coward- 
ice and  weakness  with  the  belief.  This  is  specially  true  of  large  classes 
of  believers.  But  the  scientific  man,  whatever  his  defects  of  motive 
and  character,  has  a  healthier  courage  and  judgment.  He  may  feel 
for  man  and  he  may  not  like  the  ugly  order  of  nature  and  suffering 
any  more  than  the  religious  mind,  but  he  takes  an  impersonal  view  of 
the  case,  will  not  "  cry  over  spilled  milk,"  or  go  about  like  a  puling 
child  because  he  cannot  obtain  from  nature  all  he  would  like.  He 
grimly  faces  facts  and  whatever  bargain  has  been  made  for  him  with 
the  universe  he  keeps  faithfully  and  without  resentment.  He  may 
sometimes  or  often  display  none  of  those  humane  interests  which  are 
better  than  science  or  knowledge  :  he  may  be  ambitious  for  fame  or 
social  standing,  and  may  trample  remorsely  upon  those  feelings 
in  fine  natures  whose  moral  sympathy  with  man  is  stronger  than 
the  intellect  or  the  will  to  face  ugly  facts.  But  he  is  not  troubled 
with  the  circumstance  that  he  cannot  have  his  own  way  with 
nature,  though  this  spirit  may  be  as  bad  as  it  can  be  good.  He 
swallows  his  pride  and  emotions,  strengthens  his  will,  and  trusts  his 
conscience,  where  he  has  these  qualities,  while  he  pursues  farther 
inquiries  to  wrest  from  the  universe  its  secrets  which,  whether  in- 
tended for  good  or  not  by  the  investigator,  may  result  in  the  welfare 
of  the  human  race  without  regard  to  the  question  whether  this  result 
is  for  present  human  culture  or  for  advantage  to  an  indefinite  life 
beyond  the  grave. 


594  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Mit  gier'  ger  Hand  nach  Schiitzen  grabt, 
Und  froh  ist  wenn  er  Regenwiirmer  findet. 

The  stoical  spirit  will  "hunt  after  treasures,  but  will  be  content  if 
it  finds  only  earthworms." 

There  is  an  important  weakness  in  the  position  of  many  believers 
in  immortality  which  ought  to  be  noticed.  There  is  a  wide  tendency 
to  come  to  the  belief  on  one  ground  and  to  defend  it  on  another.  The 
influence  which  makes  our  arguments  respectable  is  determined  by  the 
spirit  of  the  age  rather  than  by  the  actual  basis  on  which  they  rest. 
We  may  actually  accept  a  doctrine  on  faith  and  attempt  to  sustain  it 
on  reason,  or  we  may  allow  our  general  view  of  the  cosmos  and  its 
rationality  to  decide  the  matter  for  us  against  pessimistic  beliefs,  if  it 
cannot  be  regarded  as  rational,  and  then  resort  to  something  else  to 
sustain  our  contention.  There  is  no  objection  to  reliance  on  faith  or 
emotional  considerations,  if  we  do  not  pretend  to  give  them  a  weight 
and  cogency  which  they  do  not  possess.  They  can  have  no  more 
power  than  the  slightest  inductions  based  upon  nothing  more  than  our 
feeling  that  the  cosmos  has  no  rational  meaning  to  us  without  the  be- 
lief. If  we  state  it  so,  and  adopt  no  policy  of  intolerance  toward 
those  who  either  do  not  feel  this  view  or  demand  stronger  credentials 
for  belief,  there  can  be^cnticism  of  this  attitude.  But  scientific  and 
philosophic  arguments,  where  accessible,  may  be,  and  I  think  are,  the 
proper  means  of  assuring  conviction  in  this  age  when  the  standard  of 
belief  is  so  high  on  all  questions.  But  there  is  no  use  to  convince 
ourselves  even  with  these  unless  they  have  all  the  power  claimed  for 
them.  It  is  the  real  or  boasted  merit  of  the  rational  philosopher  that 
he  subordinates  his  beliefs  and  the  degree  of  tenacity  with  which  he 
holds  to  them  to  the  character  of  his  logic  and  facts,  and  will  not  allow 
erroneous  reasoning  to  prove  what  is  in  fact  a  mere  general  moral 
judgment  accompanied  by  various  emotions.  As  I  have  already  indi- 
cated, the  belief  or  the  hope  of  survival,  where  it  tends  to  have  any 
general  tenacity  at  all,  and  is  not  a  mere  personal  wish  to  live,  is  a  re- 
flex of  a  pure  and  lofty  moral  nature,  assuming  that  it  has  no  other 
credentials.  I  do  not  deny  this  influence  a  certain  worth,  perhaps 
of  much  importance,  though  the  right  to  persist  in  it  is  subordinate 
to  philosophic  and  scientific  considerations.  What  gives  it  the  weight 
that  I  concede  will  be  remarked  after  indicating  why  I  do  not  attach 
much  weight  to  the  moral  argument  of  Kant  in  favor  of  immortality. 
This  was  based  upon  the  disparity  between  virtue  and  happiness  in 
the  present  life.  Duty  demanded,  thought  Kant,  more  than  it  was 
possible  for  man  to  realize  in  the  present,  and  the  natural  relation  be- 


C  ONCL  US  ION.  595 

tween  virtue  and  happiness,  its  proper  reward,  being  unrealized  in  the 
present,  required  a  future  life  to  effect  it.  I  concede  at  least  some 
plausibility  to  this  argument  as  reflected  in  the  consciousness  that  a 
rational  world  demands  such  a  relation  between  virtue  and  happiness. 
But  Kant  assumes  what  his  philosophy  does  not  provide  but  rather 
discredits,  namely,  the  rational  nature  of  the  world.  But  the  fact  may 
be  that  the  world  has  no  other  rationality  than  that  which  favors  the 
conquest  of  happiness  by  virtue  in  the  present  order  and  not  complain- 
ing if  we  do  not  win.  Kant  was  too  much  influenced  in  his  judgment 
of  the  argument  by  the  conceptions  of  rewards  and  punishments  enter- 
tained at  his  time  in  relation  to  a  whole  system  of  alleged  virtues 
which,  in  fact,  have  no  such  importance  as  was  claimed  for  them. 
The  connection  between  virtue  and  happiness,  as  conceived  at  that 
time,  was  infected  with  the  artificiality  of  the  theological  temper  of  the 
age  and  there  was  less  room  to  recognize  both  the  true  ethical  ideas 
and  the  consequent  natural  relation  which  should  exist  between  the 
two  things  named.  Kant  inevitably  exaggerates  the  disparity  between 
them  by  implying  that  there  is  more  virtue  and  less  happiness  in  actual 
life  than  may  be  the  fact.  We  need  to  estimate  the  relation  between 
conduct  and  consequences  in  the  present  world  less  from  the  point  of 
view  of  rewards  and  punishments  and  more  from  that  of  natural  causes 
and  effects,  recognizing  that  often  the  result  is  the  same  for  a  mistake 
as  for  a  sin.  This  paradox  in  the  system  may  be  due  only  to  the  fal- 
sity of  much  of  our  ethics.  Many  of  our  assumed  duties  are  merely 
social  and  conventional,  not  cosmic  affairs,  while  many  of  the  cosmic 
pertain,  so  far  as  we  know,  only  to  the  conditions  of  the  incarnate  life. 
In  social  and  conventional  matters  rewards  and  punishments  have  to 
be  more  or  less  artificial,  and  in  cosmic  matters  they  are  natural  con- 
sequences of  action.  In  our  conceptions  of  ethics  the  two  types  of 
facts  become  confused  and  many  of  our  moral  inequalities  of  which 
we  complain  are  due  to  this  confusion.  When  the  one  type  is  distin- 
guished from  the  other  there  may  remain  the  mistakes  and  their  con- 
sequences as  difficulties  in  the  way  of  supposing  nature  rational,  but 
this  would  only  shut  Kant  out  of  expecting  things  any  better  in  another 
existence  under  the  same  general  governance.  It  is  useless  for  him  to 
put  the  rational  connection  in  the  next  life,  if  he  expects  us  to  accept 
that  as  any  better  accredited  than  the  present.  If  the  rationality  of  the 
present  life  is  discredited  by  the  inequality  between  merit  and  deserts 
there  is  no  reason  in  experience,  which  was  Kant's  standard  for  meas- 
uring truth,  for  supposing  that  the  next  will  be  any  more  rational 
than  this  one.      The  next  might  be  better,  but  we  could  hardly  ex- 


596  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

pect  it  to  be  framed  on  any  radically  different  principles   than   the 
present. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  admit  that  there  are  inequalities  in  the  present 
life  that  need  righting,  according  to  standards  of  ethics  not  conven- 
tional, but  I  do  not  see  that  their  existence  is  an  evidence  of  a  future 
life  to  right  them,  as  this  assumes  that  the  cosmos  is  more  rational  than 
we  have  any  evidence  in  experience  to  believe.  I  rather  think  that 
Kant  did  not  analyze  and  state  the  moral  argument  correctly.  I  do  not 
think  that  it  should  be  based  upon  the  inequalities  between  virtue  and 
happiness,  but  on  the  inequalities  between  the  moral  law  and  natural 
law,  that  is,  between  what  we  are  compelled  to  value  and  what  nature 
actually  seems  to  value.  We  are  obliged  by  our  very  nature  to  place 
consciousness,  involving  intelligence  and  morality,  above  mere  matter 
in  our  action  toward  progress.  Every  achievement  which  we  insist 
upon  as  necessary  to  any  and  all  progress  is  conditioned  by  conscious- 
ness in  some  way,  or  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  are  those  which 
we  wish  to  keep  persistent.  That  is  to  say,  we  estimate  the  existence 
of  consciousness  and  its  achievements  in  intelligence  and  morality  as 
superior  to  matter  and  its  phenomena,  and  we  have  to  do  this  if  we  make 
any  progress.  Now  we  also  estimate  the  permanent  more  highly  than 
the  transient.  We  depend  upon  it  for  our  development.  Ever  since 
Plato  it  has  been  the  permanent  that  has  taken  the  most  important 
place  in  ethical  values.  As  we  place  consciousness  above  mere  ma- 
terial facts  in  its  character  and  importance  we  must  naturally  ask 
whether  there  is  any  tendency  for  this  fact  to  persist  in  the  order  of 
things  in  the  form  which  gives  it  a  personally  ethical  value.  We 
observe  that  matter  is  eternal.  The  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  shows  that  matter  is  permanent,  and  if  nature  does  not  confer 
an  equal  boon  upon  personal  consciousness  it  adopts  a  policy  in  favor 
of  the  facts  which  our  own  progress  imperatively  depreciates  in  com- 
parison with  those  it  must  estimate  most  highly.  Nature  seems  more 
careless  of  consciousness  than  of  matter.  What  is  highest  in  our 
moral  nature  in  the  present  life  is  apparently  held  in  an  inferior  esti- 
mation by  the  cosmos.  This  situation  is  a  fact  showing  one  half  of 
the  present  order  quite  rational  and  the  other  half  just  as  irrational. 
If  a  future  life  be  a  fact  then  the  whole  system  appears  rational,  at 
least  in  the  fact  of  its  preserving  consciousness  as  well  as  matter.  The 
discrimination  which  the  moral  law  makes  shows  that  the  present  sys- 
tem is  not  wholly  irrational,  but  its  rationality  would  seem  to  be  very 
imperfect,  or  such  as  it  had  would  be  rendered  nugatory,  if  personal 
consciousness  were  not  granted  an  equal  rank  with  matter  in  the  proc- 


conclusion.  597 

ess  of  conservation.  We  have  to  adjust  our  conduct  to  the  law  and 
order  of  nature,  and  if  that  order  does  not  make  consciousness  with  in- 
telligence, emotion  and  morality  permanent  we  can  hardly  be  blamed 
if  we  regulate  our  actions  according  to  material  considerations 
which  are  the  only  ones  presumably  respected  by  the  cosmos.  These 
do  not  prevent  prudence  in  conduct  of  an  hedonistic  type,  but  they  do 
show  that  there  is  no  necessity  of  reckoning  with  a  future  spiritual  life, 
if  it  is  not  to  be.  A  materialistic  life  is  always  the  natural,  the  logical, 
and  the  necessary  consequence  of  a  materialistic  philosophy  in  the  long 
run.  If  nature  does  not  respect  consciousness  as  much  as  matter,  we 
have  only  the  present  to  take  account  of  and  this  alone  will  permit 
actions  that  a  future  life  would  not,  at  least  from  the  point  of  view  of 
knowledge.  It  is  just  this  condition  of  the  case  that  gives  Kant's 
moral  argument  its  force,  and  not  the  question  of  rewards  and  penal- 
ties. It  would  not  be  felt  where  the  moral  nature  has  not  once  and 
fully  felt  the  moral  law  which  simply  demands  that  the  cosmos  be 
made  as  rational  throughout  as  the  present  and  as  the  ideals  which  it 
creates  suggest  as  possible.  This  is  why  the  natural  reflex  of  a  fine 
moral  nature  is  always  on  the  side  of  hope  and  faith,  if  it  can  free 
itself  from  those  conceptions  of  such  a  life  which  have  both  weakened 
the  belief  and  depreciated  its  value. 

It  will  be  seen  then  that,  with  all  the  difficulties,  weaknesses, 
doubts  and  limitations,  the  belief  in  a  future  life  has  its  importance. 
Or  rather  the  credible  and  proved  fact  of  survival  would  have  much 
importance  for  civilization  in  that  stage  in  which  its  ideals  require  this 
additional  motive  to  give  them  the  power  they  need  and  which  would 
lose  their  imperativeness,  if  the  doctrine  were  displaced.  No  doubt 
we  should  be  stronger  if  we  could  respect  the  moral  law  without  this 
faith,  but  the  majority  of  the  race  can  look  at  life  with  more  encourage- 
ment if  they  know  that  their  highest  duties  and  ideals  are  as  much  re- 
spected by  the  order  of  the  world  as  they  feel  for  them.  The  value 
that  is  placed  on  personality  in  comparison  with  matter  must  suggest 
the  desirability  that  the  more  ideal  of  the  two  should  be  preserved  so 
that  duty  and  the  realization  of  its  object  should  coincide,  not  so  much 
as  a  concession  to  the  idea  of  reward  as  to  that  of  a  rational  consequence 
of  the  relative  value  that  we  must  place  upon  personality  and  matter. 
Any  man  who  has  a  moral  ideal  involving  the  highest  development  of 
consciousness,  whatever  he  may  think  about  the  evidence  for  survival, 
must  frankly  recognize  the  desirability  of  it  in  its  ideal  form  and  the 
different  view  of  man's  relation  to  the  universe  which  it  would  indi- 
cate.    It  is  all  very  fine  to  put  on  a  brave  face  and  say  we  do  not  care 


59S  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

for  it,  when  about  the  only  reason  we  have  for  assuming  such  an  air  of 
courage  and  bravado  is  the  fact  that  we  have  to  confess  the  want  of 
evidence  for  it.  We  all  like  to  appear  indifferent  when  there  is  no 
hope.  Self-control  is  a  most  important  duty  and  so  is  resignation,  but 
this  fact  is  no  reason  for  pretending  to  hold  that  survival  is  not  de- 
sirable, if  it  is  not  a  degenerated  condition.  Healthy  natures  will  not 
whimper  under  disappointment,  but  will  endeavor  to  make  the  best  of 
a  bad  bargain.  But  in  spite  of  the  necessity  for  being  strong  in  such 
circumstances  and  contenting  one's  self  with  morality  and  the  absence 
of  hope,  there  is  not  a  serious  sceptic  that  would  not  frankly  admit  that 
such  a  fact  as  survival  from  death,  assuming  that  it  carried  with  it  any 
sanity  of  mental  condition,  would  change  man's  attitude  toward  the 
cosmos  and  represent  its  order  in  a  more  favorable  light  than  materi- 
alism. Respectability  may  have  more  to  do  with  making  us  stoics 
than  real  virtue.  Courage  is  a  safe  quality  when  cowardice  suffers  all 
the  pains  and  runs  as  many  risks  as  bravery.  Hence  there  is  no  use 
to  pretend  moral  indifference  to  the  question  when  sound  judgment 
must  concede  that,  hypothetically  at  least,  survival  after  death  would 
put  a  more  ideal  construction  on  the  policy  of  nature  or  Providence 
than  annihilation,  assuming  that  life  of  any  kind  has  any  value.  We 
might  find  it  necessary  to  give  up  hope,  no  matter  what  we  thought  of 
the  case,  but  the  necessity  of  being  brave  is  not  a  reason  for  denying 
the  moral  value  of  the  doctrine  under  proper  conditions,  even  though 
it  is  only  the  result  of  the  morality  which  it  in  turn  encourages  and 
perpetuates.  Pretence  of  not  being  interested  in  it  because  we  cannot 
prove  it,  though  it  would  color  the  existence  of  morality  with  a  fine 
stimulus,  is  no  better  than  a  passionate  desire  for  it.  It  looks  and 
sounds  heroic  to  plead  for  stout  and  brave  hearts,  but  that  language 
and  the  mood  it  represents  only  masks  the  very  value  which  I  am  con- 
tending for,  and  if  we  cannot  be  stoical  without  tacitly  confessing  the 
desirability  of  what  we  cannot  get,  it  might  be  a  higher  virtue  to  avoid 
hypocrisy  in  the  matter.  Man  may  easily  forget  the  fable  of  the  fox 
and  the  grapes  when  he  talks  about  immortality  while  he  shows  a  pas- 
sionate selfishness  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  fame,  social  eclat,  respec- 
tability and  freedom  from  toil,  and  neglects  all  the  human  sympathies 
that  might  redeem  the  present  life  from  many  of  the  features  that  induce 
the  sceptic  to  impeach  nature.  Scientific  reputation  is  not  a  protection 
against  selfish  impulses,  even  when  it  enforces  allegiance  to  facts 
against  what  seems  to  be  a  human  interest.  Obedience  to  logic  and 
fact  is  a  duty  as  well  as  a  necessity  when  it  comes  to  the  inevitable,  but 
this  does  not  involve  any  necessity  or  obligation  to  pretend  that  the 


conclusion.  599 

universe  is  better  without  than  with  the  preservation  of  personality  and 
the  best  ideals  that  ever  influenced  human  action. 

It  is  easy,  however,  to  abuse  the  belief,  as  I  have  already  indicated. 
Christian  thought  was  a  complete  reaction  upon  the  despair  of  Greek 
life.  Greek  ethics  were  wholly  secular  and  not  religious.  In  fact, 
after  the  decline  of  mythology,  the  ideals  of  Greek  civilization  were 
wholly  aesthetic  and  political,  never  of  the  religious  type  that  regulated 
the  present  solely  for  the  future  life  of  the  soul.  Christian  thought 
placed  the  central  point  of  human  interest  in  another  world  after 
death.  As  a  consequence  it  neglected  the  present  life,  except  so  far  as 
it  was  a  means  for  the  next.  The  two  types  of  thought  were  just  the 
opposite  of  each  other,  the  one  sacrificed  the  future  life  to  the  present 
and  the  other  the  present  life  to  the  future.  Scepticism  and  material- 
ism, however,  have  weakened  the  faith  in  immortality  and  left  only 
the  social  aims  of  Christianity  to  take  its  place.  There  has  been  an 
unquestioned  need  for  this  development  in  order  to  balance  morality 
against  the  abuses  of  a  belief  that  had  formed  more  definite  concep- 
tions of  the  hereafter  than  any  facts  justified  and  made  it  necessary  for 
healthy  minds  to  cultivate  virtue  without  a  too  insistent  expectation  of 
other  reward.  The  reaction  against  "  other  worldliness  "  was  a  neces- 
sity to  secure  proper  attention  to  our  natural  duties  which  aie  pri- 
marily in  the  present  life,  even  if  they  are  in  any  way  related  to  the 
future.  The  value  of  the  belief  in  survival  depends  not  so  much  upon 
the  future  considered  as  the  aim  of  the  present  as  it  does  upon  the  con- 
duct of  the  present  with  the  future  as  a  consequence.  The  duty  is  not 
so  much  to  work  for  the  future  as  to  work  for  the  highest  ideals  of  the 
present  with  the  prospect  of  the  future,  if  that  has  any  credentials,  and 
to  rest  satisfied  if  it  has  not  the  sufficient  evidence  in  its  support. 

In  concluding  the  chapter  on  the  existence  of  God  I  deferred  some 
observations  on  that  problem  until  they  could  be  made  here.  I  had  in 
mind  some  remarks  on  the  passions  that  cling  so  tenaciously  to  mere 
formulas  about  God.  In  trying  to  smooth  the  way  for  a  reconciliation 
between  science  and  religion  on  the  question  of  the  divine  existence,  I 
pointed  out  that  the  conception  of  matter  had  become  so  refined  that  it 
might  easily  be  substituted  for  God,  in  so  far  as  philosophic  use  and 
conception  are  concerned.  But  the  religious  mind  will  not  easily  ac- 
cept the  suggestion  of  any  such  substitution.  The  name  of  God  to  it 
is  hallowed  by  too  many  associations  with  the  highest  ideals  of  person- 
ality and  the  aspirations  of  man  to  divest  it  safely  of  its  power  to  in- 
voke respect,  fear  and  reverence,  as  its  identification  with  matter  would 
appear  to  do,  its  associations  being  free  from  all  spiritual  flavor.     It  is 


600  THE   PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

true  that  it  has  not  been  the  same  in  all  ages,  and  never  assumes 
more  than  what  man  himself  has  achieved  in  his  development,  al- 
ways reflecting  his  best,  and  sometimes  with  it  the  worst  that  afflicts 
bis  nature.  The  Greek  gods  embodied  all  the  moral  defects  of  that 
civilization  and  differed  from  the  Greek  himself  only  in  the  superiority 
■of  their  power  and  the  force  of  their  passions.  The  Judaistic  and 
•Christian  conceptions  of  God  were  as  various  as  the  stages  of  their  de- 
velopment, now  cruel  and  merciless  and  again  tender  and  righteous. 
In  the  middle  ages  the  name  was  not  sufficient  to  restrain  any  impulse 
except  humanity.  In  fact  the  conception  of  God  was  best  represented 
by  the  dire  cruelty  which  he  was  said  to  visit  upon  his  creatures  if  they 
did  not  assent  to  certain  unbelievable  propositions.  The  doctrine  of 
eternal  punishment,  embodied  in  the  idea  of  the  most  frightful  tortures 
and  pictured  with  unrivalled  savagery  in  Dante's  Inferno,  and  supple- 
mented by  a  theory  of  arbitrary  grace  and  predestination  discriminat- 
ing between  the  saved  and  the  lost  without  any  regard  to  free  will, 
holds  up  to  our  vision  as  ugly  a  spectre  of  inhuman  and  immoral 
power  as  ever  darkened  the  judgment  of  man.  I  know  that  among 
the  finer  intellects,  even  in  the  interpretation  of  these  doctrines,  there 
was  a  spirit  that  moderated  their  repugnance  and  tempered  them  to 
more  approved  ways  and  means,  while  here  and  there  noble  minds 
kept  alive  the  spark  of  humanity  and  justice  until  better  times.  But 
the  superficial  character  of  mediaeval  history,  its  savagery  in  war  and 
politics,  together  with  its  idea  of  the  terrible  retribution  for  sins  that 
deserved  more  pity  than  punishment,  that  is  to  say,  the  annals  of  the 
past  and  the  prospects  it  held  out  for  the  future,  require  us  to  go  very 
deeply  if  the  conception  of  God  entertained  by  them  could  shed  any 
lustre  upon  either  history  or  hope.  The  fact  that  we  find  the  concep- 
tion purified  by  the  progress  of  man  and  tending  to  represent  the  best 
moral  achievements  and  ideals  of  his  development  shows  here  as  in 
the  question  of  immortality  that  it  is  the  prior  moralization  of  man 
that  moralizes  and  idealizes  his  conception  of  God.  "  Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God."  Hence  the  primary  matter 
is  not  a  theistic  theory,  nor  an  atheistic,  but  a  pure  heart  which  will 
affect  our  view  of  the  universe,  whether  we  regard  it  as  good  or  bad, 
and  our  actions  will  be  determined  by  what  is  within  more  nobly  than 
by  what  is  without.  It  is  not  every  man  who  says  God  that  shall  be 
saved,  but  he  that  doeth  what  a  true  ideal  makes  imperative.  The  in- 
tolerant demand  that  a  man  must  believe  in  the  existence  of  God,  in 
the  sense  in  which  it  has  so  long  been  represented  as  a  condition  of 
being  moral  or  religious,  simply  mistakes  the  order  of  nature  and  indi- 


C  ONCL  US  ION.  60 1 

cates  the  last  refuge  of  the  spirit  of  authority.  I  do  not  deny  a  value  in 
the  use  of  the  idea,  as  it  is  a  very  complex  one,  but  it  must  be  qualified 
by  the  development  of  the  man  to  whom  the  conception  appeals.  The 
fact  that  it  is  man's  moralization  that  purifies  the  conception  of  God 
only  proves  the  extent  to  which  the  idea  may  become  anthropomorphic, 
as  our  own  minds  must  be  the  measure  of  what  we  conceive.  Reflec- 
tion and  criticism  may  eliminate  objectionable  features,  but  the  natural 
temptation  to  anthropomorphism,  as  perhaps  the  necessity  of  it  in  some 
form,  is  such  that  it  is  more  important  to  imbue  the  human  mind  with 
the  right  ideas  and  the  will  with  the  right  motives  than  it  is  to  save 
philosophic  theism  from  mere  speculative  impurities. 

To  correct  the  tendencies  to  individualistic  anthropomorphism  we 
need  to  test  our  ideals  by  reference  to  the  totality  of  the  phenomena 
which  they  are  supposed  to  embrace  in  the  scope  of  their  action,  and 
this  duty  brings  us  to  face  all  the  facts  as  the  data  by  which  we  shall 
measure  the  character  of  the  causal  agency  at  the  basis  of  things,  with 
no  more  right  to  anthropomorphize  it  than  we  are  allowed  to  anthropo- 
morphize everything  under  the  limitations  of  criticism.  In  the  ideal- 
istic philosophy  everything  is  anthropomorphic.  Since  all  reality  has 
to  be  seen  and  understood  in  terms  of  human  nature,  there  can  be  no 
objection  to  a  definite  characterization  of  the  Absolute,  because  it  must 
be  interpreted  by  what  it  does,  and  if  the  moralization  of  man  in  the 
process  of  evolution  is  the  work  of  the  Absolute  in  any  respect  its  char- 
acter is  to  that  extent  determined  in  spite  of  the  anthropomorphic  ele- 
ments in  our  ideas. 

But  to  return  to  the  main  point.  It  is  not  a  theistic  theory,  as 
usually  understood,  that  is  the  primary  thing  to  be  established,  but  the 
moralization  of  man  as  a  condition  of  making  such  a  conception  useful. 
It  of  course  reacts  on  character,  but  the  appreciation  of  an  idealized 
deity  is  necessary  in  order  to  give  it  any  moral  efficiency,  and  this  ap- 
preciation involves  some  prior  moralization  as  a  condition  of  accepting 
the  objective  existence  of  the  ideal  in  anything  else.  I  have  already 
remarked  that  the  cogency  of  the  arguments  for  God's  existence  de- 
pend more  upon  the  conception  of  God  which  we  entertain  than  upon 
the  method  of  arguing  the  case.  The  material  content  of  our  conclu- 
sions is  as  importan£vfact  as  the  formal  process.  Our  method  may  be 
faultless  and  our  conclusion  a  7ton-sequitur  simply  because  it  repre- 
sents more  than  is  contained  in  our  premises.  This  means,  of  course, 
that  less  importance  attaches  to  the  name  of  God  than  to  the  facts  of 
the  cosmos  which  are  supposed  to  have  a  cause.  The  name  cannot 
safely  be  used  for  any  other  purpose  than  to  express  these  facts  or  the 


6o2  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

law  underlying  them.  We  shall  have  to  discover  the  general  plan,  or 
the  various  parallel  or  convergent  plans  of  cosmic  evolution  in  order  to 
endow  the  conception  of  God  with  that  use  for  science  which  it  has 
ideally  for  religion.  The  difficulties  here  are  unquestionably  great. 
The  evidential  criterion  of  science  is  so  rigid  and  exacting  that  it  im- 
poses an  unusually  severe  task  upon  inquiry,  and  the  tendency  for  a 
century  has  been  to  trust  no  other  criterion  or  authority.  Science  has 
taken  the  place  of  philosophy,  with  a  method  that  subordinates  a  priori 
to  a  posteriori  considerations,  and  thus  insists  upon  the  study  from 
the  point  of  view  of  facts.  I  have  shown  that  the  supreme  method  of 
proof  in  science  is  the  Method  of  Difference,  or  isolation,  the  Method 
of  Agreement  always  requiring  more  or  less  suspense  of  judgment  in 
forming  convictions. 

Now  if  God  have  an  organic  relation  to  the  universe  it  will  be  im- 
possible to  " prove"  his  existence  absolutely  by  scientific  method,  be- 
cause he  cannot  be  isolated  or  separated  from  it.  He  is  too  integral  a 
part  of  it,  on  this  supposition  of  his  continual  support  of  it,  to  apply 
the  method  of  difference  to  the  determination  of  the  result.  The 
method  of  agreement  would  be  applicable  to  sustain  such  possibilities 
as  the  facts  and  that  method  will  support,  but  will  always  leave  much 
to  variations  of  individual  temperament  in  the  determination  of  belief, 
as  it  can  give  only  various  degrees  of  probability.  This  procedure 
might  go  so  far  as  to  decide  the  balance  against  scepticism,  when  it 
did  not  wholly  remove  that  influence  on  cautious  minds.  The  con- 
vergent effect  of  all  facts  and  the  influence  of  moral  temperament 
might  conclude  in  favor  of  a  possibility  or  a  probability  and  the  mind 
remain  content  with  that  where  it  could  not  attain  certitude.  But  in 
any  case,  whether  for  proof  or  presumption,  there  must  be  evidence 
sufficient  to  show  an  intelligent  and  moral  tendency  in  the  course  of 
things  to  estimate  the  character  of  the  Absolute  by  what  it  does,  and 
so  to  make  the  conception  of  God,  as  that  is  contrasted  with  "  nature," 
agreeable  to  the  demands  of  our  highest  intelligence  and  morality. 
There  is  only  one  way  open  to  us  to  effect  this,  after  realizing  the 
enormous  difficulties  in  the  way  of  scientifically  proving  the  existence 
of  God  by  either  of  the  methods  mentioned.  This  is  to  make  probable 
that  the  order  of  the  world  involves  the  preservation  of  personal  con- 
sciousness. It  is  the  struggle  of  the  human  mind  between  its  ideals 
and  the  discoverable  tendency  of  things  toward  materialism  that  gives 
the  sting  to  scepticism  and  tortures  those  who  wish  to  create  an  ap- 
preciation for  the  highest  spiritual  life  by  showing  that  nature  is  on  the 
side  of  it.     To  feel  that  the  cosmos  creates  impulses  and  obligations. 


C  ONCL  USION.  603 

which  it  has  no  intention  either  to  reward  or  to  estimate  as  highly  as 
it  does  the  impulses  which  that  ideal  imperatively  treats  as  morally  in- 
ferior, is  to  place  ourselves  inevitably  where  we  must  judge  the  world 
by  that  standard.  If  man  could  give  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  that 
is,  its  survival  of  death,  the  same  probability  that  many  of  his  widest 
scientific  truths  possess,  he  would  find  himself  in  a  position  to  be  less 
passionately  interested  in  the  theistic  argument  and  might  find  himself 
conceding  it  without  resistance.  If  he  found  the  actual  order  of  the 
world  on  the  side  of  his  best  ideals,  the  reflex  of  this  fact  would  be  to 
bring  the  conception  of  God  into  closer  relation  to  the  idea  of  nature 
than  it  has  ever  been  since  the  controversy  arose  between  Christianity 
and  Greek  philosophy.  Such  a  result  would  show  the  conservation 
of  personality  to  be  equal  to  that  of  matter  and  a  part  of  the  same 
scheme,  and  the  technically  theistic  conclusion  would  either  follow  as 
a  natural  consequence  or  be  easily  held  in  abeyance  for  further  knowl- 
edge. To  be  thus  conscious  that  duty  and  humanity  are  estimated  by 
nature  as  they  are  by  the  best  men  is  to  remove  the  attack  on  the  world 
for  not  being  divine,  and  though  the  mystery  of  apparently  unjust  pain 
would  still  remain  to  trouble  fine  intellects,  its  savagery  would  be  miti- 
gated by  the  hope  of  final  victory  over  struggle  and  for  mercy.  The 
conception  of  God  as  a  personal  being  would  more  easily  adjust  itself 
to  such  an  order  without  being  made  any  longer  antithetic  to  nature, 
which  after  all  is  nothing  but  a  name  for  facts  divested  of  all  presup- 
positions of  causes.  We  deceive  ourselves  when  we  talk  of  "nature" 
as  a  cause.  Neither  "  nature  "  nor  u  law"  do  anything.  They  are 
mere  names  for  what  is  done,  and  the  cause  remains  a  quaesitum  unless 
it  is  given  directly  with  the  event  or  events  caused.  The  perpetual 
scientific  reference  to  nature  as  a  cause  is  based  upon  an  illusion  and 
owes  its  cogency  with  most  minds  to  the  readiness  with  which  even 
theism  conceded  it  causal  implications.  But  where  it  is  not  a  synonym 
for  gross  sensible  matter  and  where  we  have  to  assume  that  super- 
sensible matter,  if  ether  is  called  this,  is  not  distinguishable  from  spirit 
as  the  basis  of  phenomenal  reality,  it  is  worthless  for  combating  the 
conception  of  God,  especially  if  we  should  ever  render  it  certain  or 
probable  that  the  preservation  of  personal  consciousness  is  a  part  of 
the  world's  plan.  The  reflex  influence  of  such  a  fact  upon  every  in- 
dividual man  who  realizes  what  the  moral  law  commands  for  his  ethi- 
cal life  must  be  to  treat  the  conception  of  God  quite  as  sympathetically 
as  he  would  any  generalization  representing  a  cosmic  order  satisfac- 
tory to  reason  and  conscience,  although  he  may  not  easily  see  the  ideal 
in  all  the  individual  facts,  any  more  than  a  child  sees  it  in  all  the  acts 


604  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  a  parent  leading  to  a  desirable  end.  It  might  make  the  moral  forces 
of  intellectual  men  more  effective  if  they  could  prove  as  much  as  they 
believe,  but  in  the  absence  of  such  proof  they  can  only  try  to  console 
themselves  with  the  hope  that  things  are  better  than  they  look. 

So  lange  wir  vertrauen  So  long  as  we  can  trust 

Auf  uns'ren  eig'nen  Muth,  Our  courage  firm  to  hold, 

Und  hoffend  vorwarts  schauen,  And  hoping  forwards  look, 

So  lang'  ist  alles  gut.  So  long  is  all  for  good. 

Und  sei  dies  Hoffen,  Sehnen  And  if  this  longing  hope 

Auch  nur  ein  Schdner  Traum  Is  but  a  fairy  dream, 

Zu  trocknen  deine  Thranen  To  dry  our  bitter  tears 

Gib  ihm  im  Herzen  Raum.  Give  it  a  place  in  life. 

Some  of  us,  however,  will  not  do  this  without  evidence.  But  quasi 
apologies  for  our  ignorance  aside,  the  primary  condition  for  viewing 
both  immortality  and  God  with  proper  respect  is  the  actual  morality 
which  is  supposed  to  be  conditioned  by  them,  and  it  only  adds  to  one's 
distress  if  he  loses  faith  in  the  moral  law  because  he  feels  sceptical  in 
his  metaphysics.  When  a  man  endeavors  to  prove  the  maxims  of 
morality  by  philosophic  defence  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  a 
future  life,  he  shows  that  he  accepts  the  truth  and  the  value  of  that  law 
prior  to  the  proof  of  it,  so  that  its  integrity  is  safe.  He  relies  upon 
his  insight  and  not  upon  his  logic. 

Ein  guter  Mensch  in  seinem  dunkeln  Drange 
Ist  sich  des  rechten  Weges  wohl  bewusst. 

A  good  man  even  in  the  darkest  hours  of  distress  is  quite  conscious  of 
the  path  of  duty.  The  priority  of  moral  insight  does  not  imply  any 
indifference  to  or  impeachment  of  the  value  of  theistic  belief,  but  only 
the  condition  of  making  that  belief  useful.  Unless  God  represent  in 
himself  the  moral  ideal,  he  is  nothing  but  the  embodiment  of  arbitrary 
power  such  as  the  Greeks  thought  their  gods,  and  hence  scepticism 
with  regard  to  them  created  no  distress.  Theism  and  morality  may 
act  and  react  on  each  other,  but  man  can  never  attribute  to  his  divini- 
ties any  qualities  which  he  has  not  previously  discovered  or  idealized 
in  himself,  and  these  will  be  some  form  of  power  and  intelligence. 
The  only  rational  object  that  he  can  have  in  so  attributing  them  is  the 
desire  to  indicate  the  existence  of  some  law  or  agency  in  the  system  of 
external  things  which  has  to  be  respected  in  his  action.  But  the  diffi- 
culty which  he  has  to  meet  in  the  assertion  or  belief  in  such  an  agency 
is  that  which  is  created  by  the  absence  of  clear  evidence  for  the  real 
existence  of  the  ideal  being  which  he  would  place  at  the  basis  of  the 
cosmos  for  the  purpose  of  justifying  the  hopes  and  faith  he  entertains 


CONCLUSION.  605 

as  to  its  outcome.  If  he  were  not  too  anthropomorphic,  as  I  have 
already  remarked,  his  difficulties  would  be  less.  But  all  that  he  can  do 
is  to  respect  his  ideal  and  to  search  for  the  facts  that  may  illuminate 
the  course  of  nature  with  that  beauty  and  goodness  which  has  always 
passed  for  the  divine,,  whatever  we  may  choose  to  call  the  cause  that 
supports  them. 

To  follow  knowledge  like  a  sinking  star 
Beyond  the  utmost  bound  of  human  thought. 
To  sail  beyond  the  sunset  and  the  baths 
Of  all  the  western  stars  until  we  die. 
It  may  be  that  the  gulfs  will  wash  us  down  : 
It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  happy  isles. 

But  since  the  recognition  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  and  the  con- 
servation of  energy  it  has  been  impossible  to  accept  a  theistic  view  of 
things  that  did  not  admit  the  immanence  of  the  divine  in  the  cosmic 
process,  and  the  only  way  to  give  this  any  spiritual  character  at  all  is 
to  find  explicit  evidence  that  consciousness  cannot  be  explained  by 
brain  activity  alone  and  that  there  is  something  besides  the  gross  mat- 
ter which  we  sensibly  know  in  the  organism.  It  may  be  anything  we 
choose  to  call  it,  but  once  established  it  leads  inevitably  to  the  demand 
for  a  unity  at  the  basis  of  both  matter  and  mind  as  we  know  them.  It 
will  not  make  any  difference  what  we  call  this,  provided  that  its  law 
of  action  respects  human  personality  and  its  ideals. 

A  word  on  the  subject  of  Pantheism  is  perhaps  necessary  in  the 
discussion  of  the  theistic  theory,  since  it  has  been  considered  in  the 
history  of  philosophy  as  especially  opposed  to  religion  and  a  theistic 
view  of  things.  There  was  some  antagonism  to  Pantheism  during  the 
middle  ages  when  it  was  discovered  that  the  Platonic  conception  of 
God  was  that  of  an  impersonal  reality.  But  the  illusion  regarding 
Plato's  doctrine  of  immortality  sufficed  to  prevent  his  pantheistic  con- 
ception of  God  from  being  dangerously  heretical,  a  fact  of  some  in- 
terest because  it  shows  that  the  interest  we  have  in  the  assumed  person- 
ality of  God  relates  solely  to  the  relation  of  that  idea  to  immortality  if 
it  is  not  guaranteed  by  natural  evidence.  But  when  the  conception  of 
God  as  a  personal  being  was  necessary  to  protect  the  belief  in  a  pos- 
sible survival  from  death,  the  doctrine  of  pantheism  appeared  very 
different  to  the  religious  mind,  and  as  Spinoza  revived  in  all  its  logical 
severity  the  monistic  conception  of  the  Absolute  as  set  off  against  the 
monotheistic  conception  of  God  distinguished  from  a  pluralistic  cos- 
mology, it  was  natural  to  feel  the  antagonism  between  the  two  points 
of  view,  especially  when  it  was  remarked  that  Spinoza  had  no  clear 


606  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ideas  on  either  the  personality  of  God  or  the  doctrine  of  personal 
immortality. 

But  I  must  consider  this  antagonism  to  the  monistic  and  pantheistic 
conception  as  wholly  mistaken.  I  do  not  consider  a  single  philosophic 
theory  of  the  cosmos  as  in  the  slightest  opposed  to  religious  views,  or  to 
the  personality  of  God  and  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  except  modern 
atomic  materialism.  The  supposition  that  they  are  incompatible  comes 
from  the  general  theological  acceptance  of  one  interpretation  of  the 
doctrine  of  Spinoza,  who  in  fact  may  be  and  is  interpreted  by  some 
writers  as  having  held  to  both  ideas.  What  Spinozism  opposed  and  had 
to  oppose  was  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  "spiritual  body"  which 
occupied  space.  Spinoza  had  adopted  the  philosophic  theory  of  Des- 
cartes in  regard  to  mental  and  physical  phenomena,  and  this  required 
him  to  regard  the  mental  as  spaceless  or  unextended.  If  personality 
were  conceived  as  essentially  extended  of  course  Spinoza  denied  it  and 
had  to  deny  it  to  be  consistently  Cartesian.  With  him  personality  had 
to  be  conceived  as  a  stream  of  consciousness,  or  as  not  existing  in  any 
sense  but  the  physico-legal  sense  in  which  it  applied  to  the  human 
organism  and  all  its  properties  and  functions.  All  that  is  needed  to 
get  out  of  difficulties  in  this  question  is  to  distinguish  between  "  per- 
son "  as  a  name  for  the  soul  and  "personality"  as  the  name  for  its 
manifestation  in  the  functional  unity  of  consciousness  and  its  stream. 
Accepting  "  personality  "  in  this  last  sense,  the  real  import  of  it  to 
most  scholastic  philosophers,  and  remembering  that  Spinoza  affirmed 
thought  or  consciousness  of  the  Absolute,  we  see  that  he  essentially 
admitted  all  that  the  theist  desires  in  his  conception  of  God.  He. also 
affirmed  extension  of  the  Absolute,  though  he  made  the  two  attributes, 
consciousness  and  extension,  parallelistic  in  their  nature.  But  the 
function  of  thought  or  consciousness  affirmed  of  it  makes  his  panthe- 
istic doctrine  consistent  with  all  that  is  essential  to  theism. 

Nor  could  he  escape  the  doctrine  of  personal  immortality,  except  as 
it  was  conceived  in  the  doctrine  of  the  bodily  resurrection  in  which 
"  personality"  was  associated  in  its  meaning  too  closely  with  the  idea 
of  extension,  and  the  body  was  not  imperishable.  But  as  his  panthe- 
istic doctrine  made  all  phenomena  modes  of  the  Absolute  ;  as  he  could 
not  appeal  to  the  postulates  of  atomism  to  make  consciousness  a  func- 
tion of  composition  ;  and  as  he  had  to  suppose  the  same  relation  of 
consciousness  to  the  Absolute  in  all  its  stages,  it  was  only  a  question 
of  fact  to  determine  whether  the  personal  stream  of  the  individual  sur- 
vived or  not.  There  was  nothing  in  the  pantheistic  conception  to 
make  it  impossible,  so  far  as  the  nature  of  the  Absolute  was   con- 


CONCLUSION.  607 

cerned,  especially  as  one  of  its  attributes  was  consciousness.  Besides 
the  analogy  which  we  have  in  primary  and  secondary  personalities, 
subliminal  and  supraliminal  mental  phenomena,  shows  how  we  might 
conceive  the  relation  between  our  own  individuality  and  the  personality 
of  the  Absolute,  though  I  have  no  intention  of  urging  this  analogy  as 
representing  the  facts.  It  merely  indicates  that  two  distinct  personali- 
ties may  exist  side  by  side  in  the  same  subject,  so  that  we  do  not  violate 
any  known  principles  when  we  suppose  the  Absolute  to  have  a  per- 
sonality distinct  from  that  represented  in  our  own  individuality  and  per- 
sonal nature. 

All  these  general  questions  between  realism  and  idealism,  material- 
ism and  spiritualism,  agnosticism  and  theism,  are  summarizable  in  the 
relation  between  science  and  religion  which  may  be  taken  up  as  the  two 
great  antagonistic  modes  of  thought  from  the  earliest  times.  I  shall  not 
enter  into  any  technical  definition  of  either  of  them  here,  as  I  am  not 
concerned  with  a  critical  examination  of  their  conceptions  for  special 
purposes,  but  only  with  the  general  spirit  represented  by  them.  Re- 
ligion is  broadly  conceived  as  a  creed,  a  sentiment,  and  a  cult,  while 
science  is  as  broadly  treated  as  a  creed  about  the  cosmos  and  its  laws 
of  action,  minus  sentiment  and  a  cult.  Religion  has  been  vai-iously 
related  to  faith  and  reason,  and  science  to  reason  only,  in  its  attempt  to 
understand  the  past  and  to  predict  the  future  from  what  it  learns  about 
the  present.  I  shall  not  go,  however,  into  any  careful  examination  of 
their  conceptual  relations  philosophically  considered,  but  content  myself 
with  the  simple  remark  that  the  general  spirit  of  science  is  respect  for 
facts  while  religion  is  essentially  identical  with  poetry.  In  fact,  I  shall 
here  treat  religion  and  poetry  as  the  same,  distinguishing,  as  the  age  has 
begun  to  do,  between  religion  and  theology,  the  latter  being  a  philosophy 
subject  to  the  vicissitudes  of  human  opinion  while  the  former  is  perennial 
and  embodies  the  emotional  attitude  of  man  toward  the  totality  of  things 
and  their  moral  outcome,  and  which,  whether  conscious  or  unconscious 
of  its  anthropomorphic  character,  may  even  touch  the  spirit  of  science 
with  inspiration  and  power.  Hence  it  is  not  the  abstract  conceptions 
of  science  and  religion  with  which  we  have  to  deal,  nor  merely  with 
certain  clearly  defined  functions  of  mind.  Both  of  these  may  easily 
be  harmoniously  adjusted,  if  the  subject  matter  to  which  they  relate  is 
consistent  one  with  the  other.  But  it  is  the  man  of  science  and  the 
man  of  religion,  with  their  complex  temperaments  that  stand  so  opposed 
to  each  other.  Or  perhaps  better,  it  is  the  general  mass  of  ideas  and 
interests  gradually  selected  and  consolidated  on  each  side  by  the  develop- 
ments of  history  that  constitute  the  battle  ground  of  these  two  enemies. 


60S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

It  is  with  these  we  have  to  treat  in  the  effort  to  adjust  their  differences* 
The  terms  religion  and  science  simply  stand  for  these  two  sets  of  com- 
plex temperaments  and  conditions. 

It  is  impossible,  however,  to  compose  the  differences  between  these 
two  tendencies  without  more  or  less  criticism  of  both  sides.  Recon- 
ciliation cannot  be  effected  without  mutual  concession,  and  it  is  the 
writer's  opinion  that  most  of  this  concession  will  have  to  be  made  by  the 
champions  of  religion.  Science  will  be  required  to  yield  something  to 
those  feelings  which  make  existence  serious  and  excite  reverence,  but 
religion  will  have  to  depend  upon  science  for  its  creed. 

It  has  always  been  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  religion  that  it  has 
been  especially  conservative  and  science  liberal  and  progressive.  There 
may  be  something  inherent  in  this  tendency  for  religion,  as  it  is  cer- 
tainly inherent  in  the  nature  of  science  to  be  liberal,  since  it  is  based 
upon  the  study  of  facts  in  the  everchanging  present  and  not  upon  mere 
authority  and  tradition  about  the  past,  or  upon  hopes  about  the  future. 
I  am  inclined  to  think,  however,  that  the  conservative  instincts  of  re- 
ligion are  due  more  to  hereditary  animosities  than  to  the  nature  of  the 
mental  needs  satisfied  by  it.  But  whatever  the  reasons,  it  has  been 
in  some  way  connected  with  losing  causes  more  than  any  other 
tendency  of  the  human  mind,  or  has  resisted  change  and  intellectual 
progress  more  than  any  other  system  of  beliefs  and  feelings.  No  doubt 
this  tendency  was  distinguished  by  the  tenacity  of  certain  beliefs  like 
those  concerning  the  existence  of  God  and  of  a  future  life,  and  their 
association  with  a  vast  system  of  dogmas  on  both  cosmic  and  philo- 
sophic questions,  so  that  the  whole  seemed  to  be  threatened  if  the  in- 
tegrity  of  any  part  of  it  was  affected.  But  it  was  first  the  misfortune 
of  religion  that  it  confided  its  protection  to  doctrines  which  were 
evanescent  and  which  became  the  prey  of  the  changes  effected  by 
science,  while  to  save  itself  destruction  at  the  hands  of  progress  it  re- 
sorted to  the  use  of  political  power  and  persecution.  This  policy  de- 
scribes its  history  for  centuries,  and  the  same  spirit  is  not  yet  wholly 
defunct.  It  has  ceased  to  burn  heretics  at  the  stake,  but  it  does  not 
always  relax  the  spirit  of  intolerance  as  is  incumbent  upon  a  power 
that  has  suffered  so  many  scientific  defeats.  It  has  simply  refined  its 
methods  of  persecution.  Wherever  it  can,  it  withholds  the  natural 
and  intellectual  rewards  of  life  from  those  who  undertake  to  criticise 
its  errors.  Anything  like  adequate  freedom  of  thought  it  does  not 
permit,  and  this  in  spite  of  its  own  Protestantism  in  behalf  of  freedom 
of  conscience.  The  imputation  of  intolerence  against  this  age,  however, 
may  mistake  the  amount  of  progress  away  from  it.     Vast  improvement 


CONCLUSION.  609 

over  the  past  is  evident,  though  examination  will  show  that  its  evidence 
is  more  in  the  abandonment  of  the  rougher  methods  applied  to  scepti- 
cism rather  than  the  adoption  of  a  positive  interest  in  freedom  of 
thought.  But  with  all  allowances  for  liberalizing  tendencies  there  is 
no  such  opportunity  for  frank  remonstrance  against  the  illusions  of  the 
religious  mind  where  it  is  most  needed  in  regard  to  questions  that  are 
rightly  the  subject  of  philosophic  debate.  It  is  only  the  man  who  has 
no  responsibilities  as  an  institutional  teacher  that  can  speak  out  his 
mind  freely  in  the  public  forum.  The  freedom  of  academic  teaching 
is  perfect  on  every  subject  but  religion  and  those  questions  affecting 
religious  interests. 

I  do  not  deny  that  scepticism  has  often  been  quite  as  provoking  as 
faith.  Sceptical  intolerance  has  often  been  as  great  as  that  of  which 
it  has  complained,  while  it  has  also  been  complicated  with  the  pride 
of  knowledge.  But  apart  from  a  temperament  quite  as  objectionable 
as  religious  bigotry,  scepticism  is  only  the  obverse  side  of  faith  itself. 
So  many  things  of  a  detrimental  character  to  men  individually  and  col- 
lectively have  been  accepted  without  examination  or  resttaint  by  whole 
generations  that  scepticism  has  been  the  only  hope  of  redemption.  It 
is  only  that  temper  of  mind  which  asks  for  evidence  and  examination 
before  accepting  beliefs.  This  men  regard  as  a  duty  in  all  subjects  ex- 
cept religion  and  here  it  is  too  often  regarded  as  sacrilege.  The  belief 
in  the  existence  of  God  and  of  immortality  has  been  infused  with  the 
intolerance  and  the  passions  of  political  power  while  cultivating  a 
view  of  things  as  sensuous  as  it  was  supposed  to  be  spiritual,  until  there 
is  nothing  to  bring  us  to  rational  conceptions  except  to  question  author- 
ity. Scepticism,  therefore,  in  restraining  these  tendencies,  like  wis- 
dom, has  had  to  seek  justification  of  her  children  in  the  appeal  to 
humanity  when  challenging  the  truth  of  fancies  that  have  been  insuf- 
ficiently sustained  by  evidence  and  that  have  not  prevented,  but  have 
perhaps  actually  encouraged  the  display  of  the  worst  passions.  Poetic 
imagination,  untempered  by  respect  for  fact  and  reality,  has  too  often 
molded  the  ideals  and  conduct  of  men,  and  its  influence  has  been 
directly  proportioned  to  the  nature  of  the  objects  on  which  admiration 
fell.  These  may  be  as  poisonous  in  the  religious  field  as  in  any  other. 
No  wonder  that  Plato  banished  Homer  from  his  ideal  republic  where 
he  intended  a  higher  humanity  to  reign.  The  wrath  of  Achilles  and 
the  savage  cruelties  of  the  Iliad  cannot  be  objects  of  respect  for  humane 
ages  or  for  societies  that  value  refinement  and  morality.  Ulysses  in 
his  wandering  search  for  knowledge  is  a  better  conception.  Nor  can 
any  really  spiritual  nature  lose  itself  in  reverence  for  the  purely  ma- 


6lO  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

terialistic  ideas  of  mediaeval  Christianity  turned  into  the  poetry  of  Dante 
and  Milton.  It  is  man's  sensuousness  that  curses  him  with  an  ideal 
which  only  scepticism  can  destroy.  But  this  savior,  like  all  others, 
only  gets  crucifixion  for  its  pains  in  clearing  man  of  the  illusions 
that  haunt  the  path  of  salvation.  But  scepticism  perforins  an  impor- 
tant function  in  the  work  of  progress  by  tempering  the  extravagances 
of  "  other  worldliness,"  by  restraining  useless  excursions  into  the  un- 
known, and  by  preparing  the  way  for  a  judicious  use  and  economy  of 
the  moral  earnestness  that  may  remain  after  doubt  has  limited  the  area 
of  certitude  in  knowledge.  It  is  also  often  enough  accompanied  by  as 
much  reverence  for  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  as  it  has  by  resigna- 
tion for  the  loss  of  aspirations  that  are  identical  with  those  of  faith. 
But  it  has  none  of  the  temper  either  of  the  coward  or  of  the  hypocrite, 
and  it  finds  in  moral  courage  a  compensation  for  restricted  ideals.  It 
may  even  identify  itself  with  the  humanities  that  confer  upon  religion 
its  whole  secular  value. 

The  religious  mind  too  often  fails  to  realize  this  basis  of  honesty  in 
the  sceptic  and  by  want  of  proper  sympathy  drives  him  into  contro- 
versy where  the  morals  of  both  are  in  danger  of  contamination  and 
when  honest  candor  might  make  them  allies.  But  the  chief  fault  of 
the  religious  mind  is  its  inelasticity  and  inadaptability  to  new  facts.  It 
will  sit  at  no  shrine  but  the  dead  formulas  of  the  past.  It  is  forever 
trying  to  put  new  wine  into  old  bottles.  It  has  allowed  its  creeds  to 
become  fixed  and  petrified,  that  is,  mere  words  with  the  content  of 
what  they  once  meant  wholly  lost.  Religion  forgets  that  its  first  con- 
ceptions had  their  meaning  determined  by  their  relation  to  the  envi- 
ronment in  which  they  were  formed  and  which  no  longer  exists,  and 
consequently  that  its  own  victory  over  ancient  philosophy  imposed  the 
duty  of  progress  which  it  has  allowed  science  to  assume.  Repeating 
antique  formulas  is  not  the  way  of  salvation.  It  is  no  better  than 
counting  one's  beads.  Nor  will  logical  jugglery  save  a  creed  from 
decay  or  give  its  decrepit  form  new  life.  Contact  with  present  reality 
is  its  only  safe  refuge.  It  cannot  remain  in  the  twilight  of  fable  and 
save  its  hopes  from  despair,  if  it  persists  in  its  distrust  of  science.  '  It 
needs  to  learn  the  lesson  of  humility  and  sacrifice  which  it  has  always 
taught,  as  its  experience  with  Copernican  astronomy,  Newtonian  grav- 
itation, and  Darwinian  evolution  ought  to  indicate.  The  confession  of 
error  and  the  change  from  a  useless  devotion  to  the  past  are  as  impera- 
tive duties  as  any  that  religion  has  urged  upon  the  hardened  sinner. 
But  it  parades  its  own  infallibility  and  hides  its  own  sins,  while  it 
evades  all  the  merits  and  magnifies  or  misrepresents  the  weakness  and 


CONCLUSION.  6ll 

errors  of  scientific  scepticism.  It  is  not  wise,  however,  to  threaten 
the  value  of  its  ideals  by  persistence  in  creeds  that  have  as  little  in 
their  defence  as  they  have  power  to  sustain  those  ideals.  Its  first  duty 
is  to  accept  the  situation  which  science  has  created,  abandon  all  con- 
troversy with  facts,  and  construct  its  system  of  beliefs  in  accordance 
with  the  methods  which  it  has  so  long  antagonized.  The  religious 
man  is  forced  to  accept  inductive  processes  for  all  convictions  in  sci- 
ence and  tries  to  keep  a  priori  methods  alive  for  the  one  subject  that 
is  more  dubious  than  all  others.  The  time  is  past  when  we  require 
absolute  certitude  for  all  our  convictions.  "  Probability  is  the  guide 
of  life,"  and  no  harm  comes  from  the  perpetual  adjustment  of  our  be- 
liefs to  everchanging  facts.  Religion  will  certainly  lose  its  power  for 
usefulness  on  any  other  policy  and  what  moral  earnestness  it  has  con- 
served for  the  world  will  languish  or  expire  for  the  want  of  association 
with  the  conceptions  and  conclusions  of  science,  so  many  of  which  are 
definitely  settled. 

It  is  important  to  remind  the  religious  man  that  there  is  one  fact 
about  science  that  makes  its  influence  highly  moral  and  religious  in  the 
true  sense  of  those  terms.  No  man  can  cultivate  the  scientific  spirit 
without  having  a  supreme  reverence  for  facts.  There  is  no  field  of 
human  interest  which  commands  so  much  sacrifice  of  prejudice,  of 
preconceptions,  of  half-formed  theories,  or  of  selfish  propensities  in 
the  matter  of  convictions.  No  fact  dare  be  distorted  without  the 
assurance  that  it  will  return  in  its  integrity  to  plague  the  inquirer. 
Science  demands  the  most  absolute  sacrifice  possible.  A  man  must 
bow  before  facts  as  he  would  before  the  Almighty.  He  cannot  de- 
mand that  the  universe  yield  to  his  wishes  in  everything  unless  he  is 
prepared  for  the  fate  of  Midas.  His  spirit  must  be  that  of  the  pious 
devotee  who  earnestly  prays  :  "  Thy  will  be  done."  There  is  no  sur- 
render of  the  will  so  absolute  as  that  required  by  science.  There  is  no 
ritual  in  the  worship  that  it  commands,  but,  like  the  kingdom  of  God, 
its  sanctuary  is  in  the  heart  and  will,  having  no  outward  forms  that  are 
either  necessary  or  useful  for  the  incitement  of  obedience  and  rever- 
ence. Science  has  but  one  mood  by  which  to  secure  salvation  and 
that  is  willing  acceptance  of  facts  regardless  of  theories  and  emotions. 
The  Christian  who  demands  of  himself  and  others  the  strictest  submis- 
sion to  the  will  of  God,  the  sacrifice  that  asks  no  favor  and  pines  at  no 
suffering,  only  expects  of  man  what  the  scientist  must  practice  whether 
he  makes  it  an  ideal  or  not,  if  he  expects  to  be  a  scientist  at  all,  or  to 
free  himself  from  the  travel  of  despair  and  to  be  content  with  less  than 
he  might  hope.     The  religious  man  may  often,  or  perhaps  may  nearly 


6l2  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

always,  fail  to  live  up  to  his  ideals,  but  the  scientific  man  never.  The 
latter  is  ever  before  an.  unpropitiable  power  and  he  knows  it.  He 
learns  to  bow  to  its  course  and  to  adjust  his  ideals  to  the  limitations 
under  which  he  works.  He  may  not  feel  the  reverence  that  is  due  to 
personality,  but  he  fulfils  the  first  condition  for  understanding  a  per- 
sonality if  he  ever  found  a  belief  in  it  justifiable,  and  he  realizes  in  his 
moral  attitude  toward  things  all  that  any  personality  can  require  of 
him  as  long  as  it  conceals  its  own  clear  existence  from  human  knowl- 
edge. The  truly  scientific  man  will  allow  no  sentimental  considera- 
tions to  prejudge  his  estimate  of  nature,  but  accepts  it  as  a  privilege 
and  a  duty  to  live  strictly  within  the  boundaries  of  assured  fact,  and 
where  he  can  venture  to  hope  for  more  than  this,  he  does  so  with  the 
resignation  of  a  Stoic.  The  letter  of  Professor  Huxley  to  Charles 
Kingsley  is  an  illustration  of  the  scientific  man  in  his  best  estate  and  is 
a  lesson  to  the  religious  devotee  that  should  not  be  forgotten.1 

1  The  whole  of  this  letter  is  worth  quoting  as  the  best  example  that  I  know  of 
the  religious  spirit  in  the  scientist.  The  son  says  of  it:  "His  reply  to  a  long 
letter  of  sympathy  in  which  Charles  Kingsley  set  forth  the  grounds  of  his  own 
philosophy  as  to  the  ends  of  life  and  the  hope  of  immortality,  affords  insight 
intouthe  very  depths  of  his  nature.  It  is  a  rare  outburst  at  a  moment  of  intense 
feeling,  in  which,  more  completely  than  in  almost  any  other  writing  of  his,  in- 
tellectual clearness  and  moral  fire  are  to  be  seen  uniting  in  a  veritable  passion 
for  truth." 

"My  Dear  Kingsley  —  I  cannot  sufficiently  thank  you,  both  on  my  wife's 
account  and  my  own,  for  your  long  and  frank  letter,  and  for  all  the  hearty  sym- 
pathy which  it  exhibits  —  and  Mrs.  Kingsley  will,  I  hope,  believe  that  we  are  no 
less  sensible  of  her  kind  thought  of  us.  To  myself  your  letter  was  specially 
valuable,  as  it  touched  upon  what  I  thought  even  more  than  upon  what  I  said  in 
my  letter  to  you.  My  convictions,  positive  and  negative,  on  all  the  matters  of 
which  you  speak,  are  of  long  and  slow  growth  and  are  firmly  rooted.  But  the 
great  blow  which  fell  upon  me  seemed  to  stir  them  to  their  foundation,  and  had 
I  lived  a  couple  of  centuries  earlier  I  could  have  fancied  a  devil  scoffing  at  me 
and  them  —  and  asking  me  what  profit  it  was  to  have  stripped  myself  of  the 
hopes  and  consolations  of  the  mass  of  mankind?  To  which  my  only  reply  was 
and  is  —  Oh  the  devil!  truth  is  better  than  much  profit.  I  have  searched  over 
the  grounds  of  my  belief,  and  if  wife  and  child  and  name  and  fame  were  all  to  be 
lost  to  me  one  after  the  other  as  the  penalty,  still  I  would  not  lie. 

"  And  now  I  feel  that  it  is  due  to  you  to  speak  as  frankly  as  you  have  done  to 
me.  An  old  and  worthy  friend  of  mine  tried  some  three  or  four  years  ago  to 
bring  us  together  —  because,  as  he  said,  you  were  the  only  man  who  would  do 
me  any  good.  Your  letter  leads  me  to  think  he  was  right,  though  not  perhaps 
in  the  sense  he  attached  to  his  own  words. 

"  To  begin  with  the  great  doctrine  you  discuss.  I  neither  deny  nor  affirm  the 
immortality  of  man.  I  see  no  reason  for  believing  in  it,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
I  have  no  means  of  disproving  it. 


CONCLUSION.      .  613 

Faust's  monologue  exhibits  in  clear  light  the  tendencies  of  the  sci- 
entific mind  when  it  has  to  free  itself  from  the  shackles  which  tradi- 
tional conceptions  of  religion  have  put  upon  it.     Faust  had  come  fresh 

"  Pray  understand  that  I  have  no  a  priori  objections  to  the  doctrine.  No 
man  who  has  to  deal  daily  and  hourly  with  nature  can  trouble  himself  about 
a  priori  difficulties.  Give  me  such  evidence  as  would  justify  me  in  believing 
anything  else,  and  I  will  believe  that.  Why  should  I  not?  It  is  not  half  so 
wonderful  as  the  conservation  of  force,  or  the  indestructibility  of  matter.  Who- 
so clearly  appreciates  all  that  is  implied  in  the  falling  of  a  stone  can  have  no 
difficulty  about  any  doctrine  simply  on  account  of  its  marvellousness.  But  the 
longer  I  live  the  more  obvious  it  is  to  me  that  the  most  sacred  act  of  a  man's  life 
is  to  say  and  to  feel,  '  I  believe  such  and  such  to  be  true.'  All  the  greatest  re- 
wards and  all  the  heaviest  penalties  of  existence  cling  about  that  act.  The  uni- 
verse is  one  and  the  same  throughout ;  and  if  the  condition  of  my  success  in 
unravelling  some  little  difficulty  of  anatomy  or  physiology  is  that  I  shall  rigor- 
ously refuse  to  put  faith  in  that  which  does  not  rest  on  sufficient  evidence.  I 
can  not  believe  that  the  great  mysteries  of  existence  will  be  laid  open  to  me  on 
other  terms.  It  is  no  use  to  talk  to  me  of  analogies  and  probabilities.  I  know 
what  I  mean  when  I  say  I  believe  in  the  law  of  inverse  squares,  and  I  will  not 
risk  my  life  and  my  hopes  on  weaker  convictions.     I  dare  not  if  I  would. 

"Measured  by  this  standard,  what  becomes  of  the  doctrine  of  immortalitv? 
You  rest  in  your  strong  conviction  of  your  personal  existence,  and  in  the  in- 
stinct of  the  persistence  of  that  existence  which  is  so  strong  in  you  as  in  most 
men. 

11  To  me  this  is  as  nothing.  That  my  personality  is  the  surest  thing  I  know 
—  may  be  true.  But  the  attempt  to  conceive  what  it  is  leads  me  into  mere  verbal 
subtleties.  I  have  champed  up  all  that  chaff  about  the  ego  and  the  non-ego, 
about  noumena  and  phenomena,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  too  often  not  to  know  that 
in  attempting  even  to  think  of  these  questions,  the  human  intellect  flounders  at 
once  out  of  its  depth. 

"  It  must  be  twenty  years  since,  a  boy,  I  read  Hamilton's  essay  on  the  uncon- 
ditioned, and  from  that  time  to  this  ontological  speculation  has  been  a  folly  to 
me.  When  Mansel  took  up  Hamilton's  argument  on  the  side  of  orthodoxy  (  ?) 
I  said  he  reminded  me  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  man  who  was  sawing  off  the 
sign  on  which  he  is  sitting,  in  Hogarth's  picture.     But  this  by  the  way. 

"  I  cannot  conceive  of  my  personality  as  apart  from  the  phenomena  of  my 
life.  When  I  try  to  form  such  a  conception  I  discover  that,  as  Coleridge  would 
have  said,  I  only  hypostatize  a  word,  and  it  alters  nothing  if,  with  Fichte,  I  sup- 
pose the  universe  to  be  nothing  but  a  manifestation  of  my  personality.  I  am 
neither  more  nor  less  than  I  was  before. 

"  Nor  does  the  infinite  difference  between  myself  and  the  animals  alter  the 
case.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  animals  persist  after  they  disappear  or  not.  I 
do  not  even  know  whether  the  infinite  difference  between  us  and  them  may  not  be 
compensated  by  their  persistence  and  my  cessation  after  apparent  death,  just  as 
the  humble  bulb  of  an  annual  lives,  while  the  glorious  flowers  it  has  put  forth 
die  away. 

"  Surely  it  must  be  plain  that  an  ingenious  man  could  speculate  without  end 
on  both  sides,  and  find  analogies  for  all  his  dreams.     Nor  does  it  help  me  to  tell 


614  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

from  scholastic  training  into  direct  contact  with  nature  and  was  en- 
dowed with  a  capacity  for  seeing  its  poetic  side.  The  flush  of  excite- 
ment and  enthusiasm  which  the  change  produced  made  the  reaction 

me  that  the  aspirations  of  mankind  —  that  my  own  highest  aspirations  even  — 
lead  me  towards  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  I  doubt  the  fact,  to  begin  with, 
but  if  it  be  so  even,  what  is  this  but  in  grand  words  asking  me  to  believe  a  thing 
because  I  like  it? 

"  Science  has  taught  me  the  opposite  lesson.  She  warns  me  to  be  careful  how 
I  adopt  a  view  which  jumps  with  my  preconceptions,  and  to  require  stronger 
evidence  for  such  belief  than  for  one  to  which  I  was  previously  hostile. 

"My  business  is  to  teach  my  aspirations  to  conform  themselves  to  fact,  not 
to  try  and  make  facts  harmonize  with  my  aspirations. 

"  Science  seems  tome  to  teach  in  the  highest  and  strongest  manner  the  great 
truth  which  is  embodied  in  the  Christian  conception  of  entire  surrender  to  the 
will  of  God.  Sit  down  before  fact  as  a  little  child,  be  prepared  to  give  up  every 
preconceived  notion,  follow  humbly  wherever  and  to  whatever  abysses  nature 
leads,  or  you  shall  learn  nothing.  I  have  only  begun  to  learn  content  and  peace 
of  mind  since  I  have  resolved  at  all  risks  to  do  this. 

"There  are,  however,  other  arguments  commonly  brought  forward  in  favor 
of  the  immortality  of  man,  which  are  to  my  mind  not  only  delusive,  but  mis- 
chievous. The  one  is  the  notion  that  the  moral  government  of  the  world  is 
imperfect  without  a  system  of  future  rewards  and  punishments.  The  other  is 
that  such  a  system  is  indispensable  to  practical  morality.  I  believe  that  both 
these  dogmas  are  very  mischievous  lies. 

"With  respect  to  the  first,  I  am  no  optimist.  But  I  have  the  firmest  belief 
that  the  Divine  Government  (if  we  may  use  such  a  phrase  to  express  the  sum  of 
the  'customs  of  matter')  is  wholly  just.  The  more  I  know  intimately  of  the 
lives  of  other  men  (to  say  nothing  of  my  own),  the  more  obvious  it  is  to  me  that 
the  wicked  does  not  flourish,  nor  is  the  righteous  punished.  But  for  this  to  be 
clear  we  must  bear  in  mind  what  almost  all  forget,  that  the  rewards  of  life  are 
contingent  upon  obedience  to  the  -whole  law  —  physical  as  well  as  moral  —  and 
that  moral  obedience  will  not  atone  for  physical  sin,  or  vice  versa. 

"  The  ledger  of  the  Almighty  is  strictly  kept,  and  every  one  of  us  has  the 
balance  of  his  operations  paid  over  to  him  at  the  end  of  every  minute  of  his 
existence. 

"  Life  cannot  exist  without  a  certain  conformity  to  the  surrounding  universe 
—  that  conformity  involves  a  certain  amount  of  happiness  in  excess  of  pain.  In 
short  as  we  live  we  are  paid  for  living. 

"And  it  is  to  be  recollected  in  view  of  the  apparent  discrepancy  between 
men's  acts  and  their  rewards  that  Nature  is  juster  than  we.  She  takes  into  ac- 
count what  a  man  brings  with  him  into  the  world,  which  human  justice  cannot 
do.  If  I,  born  a  bloodthirsty  and  savage  brute,  inheriting  these  qualities  from 
others,  kill  you,  my  fellow-men  will  very  justly  hang  me,  but  I  shall  not  be 
visited  with  the  horrible  remorse  which  would  be  my  real  punishment  if,  my 
nature  being  higher,  I  had  done  the  same  thing. 

"  The  absolute  justice  of  the  system  of  things  is  as  clear  as  any  scientific  fact. 
The  gravitation  of  sin  to  sorrow  is  as  certain  as  that  of  the  earth  to  the  sun,  and 


CONCLUSION.  615 

tremendous  and  transferred  all  the  emotions  that  had  properly  or  tra- 
ditionally characterized  religious  worship  over  to  physical  nature.  It 
is  unfortunate,  however,  that  the  opposition  between  science  and  re- 
more  so  —  for  experimental  proof  of  the  fact  is  within  reach  of  us  all  —  nay,  is 
before  us  all  in  our  own  lives,  if  we  had  but  the  eyes  to  see  it. 

"  Not  only,  then,  do  I  disbelieve  in  the  need  for  compensation,  but  I  believe 
that  the  seeking  for  rewards  and  punishments  out  of  this  life  leads  men  to  a 
ruinous  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  their  inevitable  rewards  and  punishments  are 
here. 

"  If  the  expectation  of  hell  hereafter  can  keep  me  from  evil-doing,  surely  a 
fortiori  the  certainty  of  hell  now  will  do  so?  If  a  man  could  be  firmly  impressed 
with  the  belief  that  stealing  damaged  him  as  much  as  swallowing  arsenic  would 
do  (and  it  does),  would  not  the  dissuasive  force  of  that  belief  be  greater  than 
that  of  any  based  on  mere  future  expectation  ?  And  this  leads  me  to  my  other 
point. 

"As  I  stood  behind  the  coffin  of  my  little  son  the  other  day,  with  my  mind 
bent  on  anything  but  disputation,  the  officiating  minister  read,  as  a  part  of  his 
duty,  the  words,  '  If  the  dead  rise  not  again,  let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die.'  I  cannot  tell  you  how  inexpressibly  they  shocked  me.  Paul  had 
neither  wife  nor  child,  or  he  must  have  known  that  his  alternative  involved  a 
blasphemy  against  all  that  was  best  and  noblest  in  human  nature.  I  could  have 
laughed  with  scorn.  What!  because  I  am  face  to  face  with  irreparable  loss,  be- 
cause I  have  given  back  to  the  source  from  whence  it  came,  the  cause  of  a  great 
happiness,  still  retaining  through  all  my  life  the  blessings  that  have  sprung  and 
will  spring  from  that  cause,  I  am  to  renounce  my  manhood,  and,  howling,  grove 
in  bestiality?  Why,  the  very  ap>es  know  better,  and  if  you  shoot  their  young, 
the  poor  brutes  grieve  their  grief  out  and  do  not  immediately  seek  distraction  in 
a  gorge. 

"  Kicked  into  the  world  a  boy,  without  guide  or  training,  or  with  worse  than 
none,  I  confess  to  my  shame  that  few  men  have  drunk  deeper  of  all  kinds  of  sin 
than  I.  Happily,  my  course  was  arrested  in  time  —  before  I  had  earned  abso- 
lute destruction — and  for  long  years  I  have  been  slowly  and  painfully  climbing, 
with  many  a  fall,  toward  better  things.  And  when  I  look  back,  what  do  I  find  to 
have  been  the  agents  of  my  redemption  ?  The  hope  of  immortality  or  of  future 
reward?  lean  honestly  say  that  for  these  fourteen  years  such  a  consideration 
has  not  entered  my  head.  No,  I  can  tell  you  exactly  what  has  been  at  work. 
Sartor  Resartus  led  me  to  know  that  a  deep  sense  of  religion  was  compatible 
with  an  entire  absence  of  theology.  Secondly,  science  and  her  methods  gave 
me  a  resting  place  independent  of  authority  and  tradition.  Thirdly,  love  opened 
up  to  me  a  view  of  the  sanctity  of  human  nature,  and  impressed  me  with  a  deep 
sense  of  responsibility. 

"  If  at  this  moment  I  am  not  a  worn  out,  debauched,  useless  carcass  of  a  man, 
if  it  has  been  or  will  be  my  fate  to  advance  the  cause  of  science,  if  I  feel  that  I 
have  a  shadow  of  a  claim  on  the  love  of  those  about  me,  if  in  the  supreme 
moment  when  I  looked  down  into  my  boy's  grave  my  sorrow  was  full  of  submis- 
sion and  without  bitterness,  it  is  because  these  agencies  have  worked  upon  me, 
and  not  because  I  have  ever  cared  whether  my  poor  personality  shall  remain  dis- 
tinct forever  from  the  All  from  whence  it  came  and  whither  it  goes. 


616  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ligion  should  give  any  room  for  misunderstanding  as  to  the  law  of 
things  or  as  to  the  source  of  reverential  emotions.  But  religion  has 
sought  to  exalt  the  purity  of  its  own  emotional  content  by  confining  it 
to  some  spiritual  world  whose  whole  meaning  was  obtained  in  contrast 
with  the  material.  Yet  at  the  same  time  that  it  defined  its  ideals  by 
the  exclusion  of  nature,  it  still  considered  the  latter  as  a  product  of  the 
same  power  that  expressed  its  divine  character  in  the  spiritual.  It 
must  therefore  not  blame  the  scientific  man  if  the  latter,  distrustful  of 

"  And  thus,  my  dear  Kingsley,  you  will  understand  what  my  position  is.  I 
may  be  quite  wrong,  and  in  that  case  I  know  I  shall  have  to  pay  the  penalty  for 
being  wrong.  But  I  can  only  say  with  Luther,  '  Got  helfe  mir,  ich  kann  nichts 
anders.' 

"I  know  right  well  that  99  out  of  100  of  my  fellows  would  call  me  atheist, 
infidel,  and  all  the  other  usual  hard  names.  As  our  laws  stand,  if  the  lowest 
thief  steals  my  coat,  my  evidence  (my  opinions  being  known)  would  not  be  re- 
ceived against  him.     [Said  in  i860.     The  law  was  reformed  in  1869.] 

"But  I  cannot  help  it.  One  thing  people  shall  not  call  me  with  justice  and 
that  is  —  a  liar.  As  you  say  of  yourself,  I  too  feel  that  I  lack  courage:  but  if 
ever  the  occasion  arises  when  I  am  bound  to  speak,  I  will  not  shame  my  boy. 

"I  have  spoken  more  openly  and  distinctly  to  you  than  I  ever  have  to  any 
human  being  except  my  wife. 

"  If  you  can  show  me  that  I  err  in  premises  or  conclusion,  I  am  ready  to  give 
up  these  as  I  would  any  other  theories.  But  at  any  rate  you  will  do  me  the 
justice  to  believe  that  1  have  not  reached  my  conclusions  without  care  befitting 
the  momentous  nature  of  the  problems  involved. 

"  And  I  write  the  more  readily  to  you,  because  it  is  clear  to  me  that  if  that 
great  and  powerful  instrument  for  good  or  evil,  the  Church  of  England,  is  to 
be  saved  from  being  shivered  into  fragments  by  the  advancing  tide  of  science  — 
an  event  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  witness,  but  which  will  infallibly  occur  if  men 
like  Samuel  of  Oxford  are  to  have  the  guidance  of  her  destinies  —  it  must  be  by 
the  efforts  of  men  who,  like  j-ourself,  see  your  way  to  the  combination  of  the 
practice  of  the  Church  with  the  spirit  of  science.  Understand  that  all  the 
younger  men  of  science  whom  I  know  intimately  are  essentially  of  my  way  of 
thinking.  (I  know  not  a  scoffer  or  an  irreligious  or  an  immoral  man  among 
them,  but  they  all  regard  orthodoxy  as  you  do  Brahmanism.)  Understand  that 
this  new  school  of  the  prophets  is  the  only  one  that  can  work  miracles,  the  only 
one  that  can  constantly  appeal  to  nature  for  evidence  that  it  is  right,  and  you 
will  comprehend  that  it  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  barricade  us  with  shovel  hats  and 
aprons,  or  to  talk  about  our  doctrines  being  '  shocking.' 

"  I  don't  profess  to  understand  the  logic  of  yourself,  Maurice,  and  the  rest  of 
your  school,  but  I  have  always  said  I  would  swear  by  your  truthfulness  and 
sincerity,  and  that  good  must  come  of  your  efforts.  The  more  plain  this  was  to 
me,  however,  the  more  obvious  the  necessity  to  let  you  see  where  the  men  of 
science  are  driving,  and  it  has  often  been  in  my  mind  to  write  to  you  before. 

"  If  I  have  spoken  too  plainly  anywhere,  or  too  abruptly,  pardon  me,  and  do 
the  like  to  me.     My  wife  thanks  you  very  much  for  your  sermons. 
"  Ever  yours  faithfully, 

"T.  H.  Huxley." 


CONCLUSION.  617 

speculations  of  an  a  priori  sort  and  without  adequate  evidence  in 
their  support,  finds  his  God  in  the  system  which  he  admires,  but  which 
shows  none  of  the  ideal  that  is  so  much  the  object  of  the  religious  man's 
reverence. 

There  are  two  things  which  the  religious  mind  should  learn.  The  first 
is  that  the  language  which  it  employs  in  the  description  of  its  system  can 
have  either  of  two  meanings  :  ( 1 )  it  may  be  abstract  in  which  its  import 
is  neither  interesting  nor  intelligible  to  those  who  think  in  concrete  im- 
ages of  sensible  experience;  (2)  it  maybe  interpreted  and  must  be  in- 
terpreted by  mankind  in  general,  in  the  terms  of  present  experience  and 
not  the  past.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  religious  doctrines  that  they  carry 
their  formulas  from  age  to  age  while  experience  changes,  and  this  ex- 
perience is  the  only  thing  by  which  the  meaning  of  formulas  can  be  un- 
derstood. Consequently,  there  is  a  perpetual  clash  between  the  con- 
servative and  the  progressive  spirit  of  men  and  times,  between  the 
tendencies  that  form  their  ideals  in  the  past  and  those  that  form  them 
in  the  present.  The  religious  man  insists  upon  being  poetic.  He  can 
hardly  be  anything  else.  He  can  only  imagine  the  past  and  the  future, 
and  his  religion  is  based  upon  these.  Nothing  but  the  ideal  survives 
the  past  and  nothing  but  the  ideal  will  pass  into  the  future.  The  real 
of  the  one  is  buried  forever  and  the  real  of  the  other  can  never  be  rep- 
resented. But  the  scientific  man,  the  lover  of  facts  must  get  his  ideal 
and  the  source  of  emotional  reverence  from  the  present,  and  fortunate 
it  will  be,  after  the  religious  mind  has  discredited  nature,  if  the  scien- 
tist can  be  stirred  by  any  beauty  in  it  at  all.  But  when  he  does  feel 
emotional  interest  in  it,  the  system  which  he  studies  is  a  mixed  one. 
The  real  and  the  ideal  are  combined  in  miscellaneous  confusion,  so 
that  he  can  never  contemplate  the  spectacle  of  nature  without  seeing 
that,  for  the  moment  that  it  passes,  the  ideal  is  touched  by  illusion. 
What  survives  from  the  past  and  what  is  expected  in  the  future  are 
idealized  by  poetry  and  religion,  and  hence  they  enjoy  a  liberty  for  the 
imagination  which  science  cannot  indulge  with  impunity.  Science  is 
responsible  for  truth,  whether  the  ideals  of  poetry  and  religion  are 
realized  or  not.  Its  kingdom  is  that  of  fact  and  its  temper  must  be 
austere  and  stoical.  But  in  all  this  the  man  may  rise  above  his  sci- 
ence just  as  the  devotee  may  fall  below  his  ideal.  It  will  all  depend 
on  the  religious  man  to  say,  after  so  many  scientific  defeats  against  tra- 
dition, whether  the  scientist  can  make  any  overtures  for  peace.  The 
vicissitudes  of  intellectual  progress  have  dispossessed  the  reign  of  faith 
in  all  but  those  who  have  not  the  courage  to  defy  the  temptations  of 
despair  and  in  those  who  never  clearly  realize  the  real  source  of  hope 


6lS  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  aspiration.  Those  who  have  to  measure  the  character  of  nature 
or  Providence  by  the  present  facts  of  experience,  and  who  have  none 
of  the  moral  weakness  of  the  sentimental  must  be  pardoned  a  temper 
of  courage  and  defiance  as  a  condition  of  restraining  intolerance  and 
the  indulgence  of  religious  emotions  that  are  injudicious  in  the  choice 
of  means  for  a  justification.  If  left  alone  to  express  their  devotions 
and  enthusiasms  the  scientific  men  will  always  come  near  to  piety  and 
reverence.  They  have  no  quarrel  with  what  cannot  be.  They  ask  no 
favor  but  to  know  and  obey. 

Wenn  der  uralte,  When  the  ancient, 

Heilige  Vater  Heavenly  father 

Mit  gelassener  Hand  With  tranquil  hand 

Aus  rollenden  Wolken  From  rolling  clouds 

Segnende  Blitze  Blessings  in  thunderbolts 

Ueber  die^Frde  sat,  Sends  over  the  earth, 

Kiiss  ich  den  letzten  I  kiss  the  last  hem 

Saum  seines  Kieides,  Of  his  garment, 

Kindliche  Schauer  Childlike  in  awe 

Treu  in  der  Brust.  Faithful  in  spirit. 

That  is  a  temper  which  the  religious  man  cannot  discourage  without 
doing  injury  to  the  best  that  is  in  his  own  ideals,  and  it  is  remarkable 
that  the  sentiment  should  be  expressed  by  a  man  like  Goethe. 

Human  nature  has  always  sought  the  divine  in  the  past  and  the 
future  and  could  see  no  good  in  the  present  or  no  poetry  in  the  real- 
It  has  looked  with  envy  on  an  imaginary  past  and  insists  upon  looking 
with  passionate  hope  on  an  equally  imaginary  future  for  its  ideals,  and 
refuses  to  be  consoled  or  satisfied  with  work  and  conquest  in  an  order 
which  it  cannot  regard  as  beneficent.  But  science  has  come  to  dis- 
turb its  fancies  and  to  teach  a  stoical  attitude  where  poetic  ecstasy  can- 
not be  felt  or  the  worship  of  art  and  nature  indulged  with  indifference 
to  the  golden  illusions  about  the  past  and  the  future.  It  refuses  to  re- 
gard the  ages  that  are  gone  and  the  ages  that  are  coming  as  any  better 
essentially  than  that  which  we  inherit.  Nature  is  uniform  and  impar- 
tial and  does  not  alter  its  course  or  behavior.  The  sun  and  the  moon 
do  not  stop  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon.  Whatever  of  mystery  there  is  in 
the  course  of  the  world  is  the  mystery  of  the  present  and  not  especially 
of  the  past  or  the  future.  There  is  either  no  age  of  miracles  or  it  is 
ever  present.  The  glory  and  the  shadows  of  the  world  are  the  same 
for  all  periods  of  time.  Whatever  its  changes  it  represents  the  same 
eternal  coloring.  Whatever  inspiration  comes  from  its  beauty  and 
grandeur  and  whatever  intelligible  aspect  it  shows,  they  are  reflected 
from  the  present  as  much  as  from  any  real  or  imaginary  past. 


CONCLUSION. 


619 


Die  Sonne  tont  nach  alter  Weise 
In  Bruderspharen  Wettgesang, 
Und  ihre  vorgeschrieb'ne  Reise 
Vollendet  sie  mit  Donnergang. 
Ihr  Anblick  gibt  den  Engeln  Starke 
Wenn  keiner  sie  ergriinden  mag; 
Die  unbegreiflich  hohen  Werke 
Sind  herrlich  wie  am  ersten  Tag. 


The  sun  still  sings  his  ancient  song 
In  rival  music  with  the  stars, 
And  in  his  predetermined  path 
He  ends  his  course  in  thundertones, 
His  visage  gives  the  angels  strength 
When  none  can  comprehend  his  ways ; 
The  unconceived  majestic  works 
Are  crowned  as  on  the  first  of  days. 


It  will  be  the  same  with  the  future.  Science  will  no  more  indulge 
imaginary  hopes  about  the  future  than  it  will  permit  imaginary  theories 
about  the  past.  Facts,  with  what  explains  them  and  what  they  may 
presage,  are  the  only  revelation  which  it  will  tolerate.  Patience,  cour- 
age, and  fortitude  are  the  only  virtues  that  it  recognizes  in  its  attitude 
toward  the  cosmos,  though  in  doing  this  it  often  forgets  the  religious 
passion  which  worships  even  when  it  loses  hope,  its  mind  still  linger- 
ing on  the  fond  possibility  that  its  stoicism  and  what  it  has  to  rever- 
ence and  respect  in  the  present  order,  may  yet  have  a  fruition  where 
virtue  does  not  have  to  seek  a  refuge  in  despair  or  be  swallowed  up  by 
the  insatiable  maw  of  fate.  But  if  it  succeeds  in  coloring  nature  with 
any  hue  of  beauty  or  goodness,  or  excites  any  admiration  for  external 
art  and  order,  or  counsels  any  moral  attitude  toward  the  cosmic  proc- 
ess, it  must  either  join  its  worship  to  pride  and  defiance  without 
either  hope  or  despair,  or  let  its  resignation  pay  homage  to  an  ideal 
which  it  cannot  prove  while  its  emotional  inspiration  and  enthusiasm 
shall  mingle  the  aspirations  of  a  Christian  reverence  and  hope  with  the 
pathos  of  a  Stoic  life. 


Alles  hinzugeben 
1st  der  Liebe  Brauch ; 
Nimm  denn  hin  mein  leben, 
Und  mein  Sterben  auch  ! 

Aller  meiner  Lieder 
Sanften  Schmeichellaut, 
Die  ein  Eden  wieder 
Sich  aus  Schutt  erbaut ; 

Alle  Lichtgedanken, 
Die  an  Gliick  und  Leid 
Kiihn  sich  aufwarts  ranken 
In  die  Ewigkeit ; 

All  mein  stilles  Sehnen, 
Innig  dir  vertraut, 
Das  in  sel'gen  Thranen 
Auf  dich  niederthaut ! 


All  to  thee  to  yield 
Is,  God,  the  way  of  love ; 
So  take,  then,  hence  my  life 
And  to  my  death  for  thee ! 

All  my  gentle  songs 
Of  holy  worship  here, 
That  build  their  Eden  joys 
From  only  heaps  of  earth  ; 

All  the  splendid  thoughts 
That  gleam  in  joy  and  pain, 
And  boldly  upward  look 
Into  Eternity ; 

All  my  silent  hopes 
And  deeper  faith  in  thee, 
That  in  my  happy  tears 
As  dew-drops  fall  on  thee ; 


620  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Nimm,  dass  nichts  dir  fehle,  Take  these  that  nothing  fail, 

Wenn  die  stunde  ruft,  And  when  the  hour  calls, 

Meine  ganze  Seele  My  soul  and  all  it  is 

Hin  als  Opferduft.  As  incense  fragrance  thine. 

But  in  this  temper  science  will  pass  into  religion  and  religion  will 
submit  to  the  sacrifice  of  its  personal  and  selfish  ideals  until  knowl- 
edge, extending  "  beyond  the  utmost  bounds  of  human  thought,"  shall 
show  us  that  the  future  is  a  link  with  the  present  as  the  present  is  with 
the  past.  But  whatever  beauty  or  goodness  the  future  may  promise 
they  must  be  found  either  latent  or  revealed  in  our  present  experience 
and  must  not  be  wholly  unrelated  or  disconnected  with  an  existence 
which  is  decried,  on  the  one  hand,  and  conceived  as  the  end  of  all 
things,  on  the  other.  Evolution,  with  its  persistence  of  energy,  con- 
ceives the  present  as  a  moving  point  between  the  past  and  the  future 
and  ever  developing  progress  or  communicating  the  ideal  and  perma- 
nent from  age  to  age,  though  for  the  moment  that  it  passes  it  is  marked 
by  a  shadow.  But  at  any  point  in  which  the  scientific  and  the  re- 
ligious temper  meet  the  passing  moment  will  be  fraught  with  promise, 
and  though  it  may  not  yield  the  hopes  which  we  love  to  indulge,  it 
will  not  wholly  disappoint  those  who,  struggling  to  realize  the  ideal, 
are  patient  to  bear  the  ills  of  the  passing  moment,  which,  while  leav- 
ing the  darkness  in  its  wake,  carries  into  the  next  the  visible  and  pro- 
phetic light  of  progress.  If  evolution  be  the  medium  for  transmitting 
the  achievements  of  the  present  intact  into  the  future,  whatever  sombre 
hues  it  may  have  for  those  impatient  minds  who  watch  in  pain  its  re- 
morseless course,  it  will  still  shelter  for  preservation  more  than  it  allows 
to  perish,  and  a  defensible  hope  may  hover  over  a  limitless  horizon 
which  an  older  view  had  pictured  as  a  precipice  leading  into  a  bottom- 
less gulf.  We  are  not  accustomed  to  think  of  evolution  as  the  bearer 
of  any  inspiriting  message,  but  with  this  conception  of  its  function  to 
preserve  achievement  and  to  protect  progress  it  assumes  the  character 
of  a  gospel  that  may  cheer  the  moment  which  the  gloomy  fears  of  the 
past  had  saddened,  and  the  science  which  had  come  to  destroy  our 
illusions  follows  its  victory  with  the  promise  of  life  instead  of  death. 
It  may  not  be  apparent  at  first  in  this  conception, 

Yet  all  experience  is  an  arch  wherethrough 
Gleams  that  untravell'd  world  whose  margin  fades 
Forever  and  forever  as  we  move. 

It  would  be  strange  if  the  vigilance  of  the  scientific  spirit  should  bring 
again  what  its  stoic  morality  told  us  must  be  sacrificed.  The  fabled 
Phoenix  may  rise  again  from  its  own  ashes.     It  did  so  once  in  the 


CONCLUSION.  621 

history  of  the  world  when  Christian  spiritualism  arose  from  Greek 
materialism,  and  right  in  the  triumphs  of  modern  scientific  mater- 
ialism the  latter's  method  may  be  the  Nemesis  of  its  scepticism. 
In  that  moment  it  will  reanimate  ethical  and  religious  aspiration 
while  it  reconciles  the  passions  of  truth  and  hope.  Greek  and 
Christian  ideals,  the  one  an  enthusiasm  for  art  with  a  fear  of  death 
and  the  other  an  ascetic  moral  temper  bathed  in  the  prospect  of  eternal 
life,  may  be  fused  in  a  secular  morality  and  a  religious  faith,  a  con- 
summation which  neither  Greek  nor  Christian  could  fully  realize. 
"  The  fear  of  age  and  death,"  says  Dickinson,  "  is  the  shadow  of  the 
love  of  life ;  and  on  no  people  has  it  fallen  with  more  horror  than  on 
the  Greeks.  The  tenderest  of  their  songs  of  love  close  with  a  sob ; 
and  it  is  an  autumn  wind  that  rustles  in  their  bowers  of  spring."  The 
Christian  transferred  the  charm  and  lustre  of  the  present  to  the  future, 
sought  to  redeem  his  earthly  life  by  the  belief  in  immortality  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  forgot  the  scientific  credentials  for  his  hopes  and 
the  ethics  of  his  social  life,  and  became  a  prey  to  the  triumph  of  an 
economic  and  materialistic  order,  until,  between  the  contempt  for  fact 
and  the  loss  of  his  faith,  he  must  come  to  science  for  the  resuscitation 
of  the  ideal  and  the  illumination  of  the  real.  It  is  possible  that  this 
may  discover  the  end  toward  which  his  history  moves. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  in  the  scientific  man's  duties  and  occu- 
pations a  condition  of  things  that  tends  to  suppress  the  sympathetic 
emotions.  The  very  constraint  of  facts  and  the  necessity  for  perpetual 
watchfulness  against  the  influence  of  hopes  and  wishes,  the  suspense  of 
judgment  in  the  estimation  of  theories  and  the  temptation  to  confine 
the  vision  to  what  is  immediately  before  him,  tend  to  keep  in  the 
background  all  the  humanizing  ideals  and  emotions  that  have  done 
more  than  either  science  or  philosophy  to  civilize  the  race,  and  have 
given  science  and  philosophy  themselves  half  the  power  which  they 
exercise  over  the  human  mind.  The  scientific  man  needs  to  learn  that 
the  narrowing  of  his  enthusiasm  to  the  mere  discovery  of  truth  may 
blind  his  vision  to  beauty  and  goodness,  or  at  least  may  check  the  im- 
pulse to  realize  more  than  the  cosmic  order  which  he  finds  and  does 
not  produce.  Man's  character  is  as  much  concerned  in  making  as  in 
observing  facts.  The  contemplative  life  alone  is  enervating,  and  with 
all  the  submission  to  the  cosmic  order,  there  is  in  scientific  patience 
and  resignation  a  condition  of  mind  that  escapes  moral  latitudinarian- 
ism  only  by  the  presence  of  the  complementary  virtues  giving  vigor 
and  passion  to  the  will.  There  is  as  much  danger  of  the  unhuman- 
izing  mental  qualities  in  science  as  there  is  of  illusions  in  religion,  and 


022  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  man  of  fact  should  learn  this  as  necessary  to  make  his  work  as  use- 
ful as  it  deserves  to  be.  The  division  of  labor  which  has  seized  every 
department  of  human  activity  too  often  shuts  the  scientific  man  out 
from  those  influences  which  tend  to  make  him  concessive  to  a  power 
on  which  he  depends  for  his  existence.  His  living  is  assured  by  ar- 
rangements that  permit  exclusive  occupation  with  his  investigations. 
He  is  relieved  from  that  struggle  for  existence  against  nature  directly 
which  does  so  much  to  create  the  sense  of  dependence  that  calls  out 
religious  hope  and  fear.  Agricultural  communities  have  always  been 
religious  :  urban  communities  are  less  so.  In  the  one,  the  direct  con- 
tact with  nature,  whether  it  be  regarded  as  impersonal  or  as  the  per- 
sonal dispensation  of  a  will  as  fixed  as  anything  impersonal  could  be, 
tends  to  enforce  the  sense  of  dependence  on  superior  and  mysterious 
power.  In  the  other,  this  dependence  is  remote  and  indirect,  the  com- 
munity being  commercial  and  the  relations  more  or  less  social  directly 
or  indirectly.  The  one  is  a  struggle  of  man  with  nature  and  the  other 
a  struggle  of  man  with  man  in  his  economic  relations.  Now  the  scien- 
tific man,  with  his  living  provided  for  him,  feels  little  of  this  struggle  in 
either  the  natural  or  the  economic  field.  Such  as  he  feels  is  that  be- 
tween himself  and  those  who  have  power  to  limit  him  in  the  freedom 
of  his  thought  and  speech.  In  contact  with  nature  only  as  something 
to  study  and  subject  to  his  own  will,  and  with  man  as  a  personal  being 
whose  whims  and  power  he  must  consider  without  respecting,  he  will 
feel  little  religious  dependence  on  the  one  and  must  learn  in  relation  to 
the  other  the  habits  of  prudence,  sycophancy,  politic  manners,  intel- 
lectual and  moral  reservation,  obsequiousness,  and  deference  to  perse- 
cuting power  and  unwilling  concession  to  minds  and  wills  that  invoke 
no  respect  while  their  power  is  feared,  and  all  in  a  situation  that  obli- 
gates him  to  think  and  to  tell  the  truth  as  he  sees  it.  Dependence  on 
nature,  where  effort  can  do  nothing  to  make  it  obedient  to  our  needs, 
invokes  some  of  the  finest  as  well  as  some  of  the  worst  of  our  religious 
habits  of  mind  and  will,  but  the  courage  that  conquers  it  and  diverts 
its  blind  processes  into  our  own  uses  does  not  elicit  the  respect  or  rev- 
erence that  is  stimulated  by  dependence  on  its  grace.  The  struggle 
with  nature  will  be  humanizing  only  when  it  represents  a  balance  be- 
tween courage  and  faith,  the  one  to  prevent  superstitious  subservience 
and  the  other  to  escape  the  despair  of  minds  that  feel  the  impulse  of 
high  duties  and  no  hope  of  realizing  their  ideals.  But  the  scientific 
man,  if  he  cannot  have  this  courage  and  faith,  and  if  he  does  not  share 
with  his  fellows  the  conditions  that  may  press  his  will  into  the  general 
service,  he  must  lose  the  social  function  of  his  work.     But  he  will 


CONCLUSION.  623 

never  understand  the  religious  temper  until  he  is  placed  in  that  fierce 
struggle  with  nature  to  earn  his  living  and  to  sustain  an  ideal  which 
the  physical  world  apparently  regards  with  indifference. 

Wer  nie  sein  Brod  mit  Thranen  ass, 

Wer  nie  die  kummervollen  Nachte 

Auf  seinem  Bette  weinend  sass, 

Der  kennt  euch  nicht,  ihr  himmlischen  Machte. 

"  He  who  has  never  eaten  his  bread  in  tears  or  passed  his  anxious 
nights  in  weeping  wilfrvever  feel  the  sense  of  the  divine."  But  place 
the  scientific  man  where  he  both  feels  his  proper  dependence  upon  the 
struggle  for  existence  and  can  enjoy  the  freedom  that  is  due  his  posi- 
tion as  a  missionary  of  truth  and  he  too  will  be  the  first  to  express  the 
humanizing  and  religious  tendencies  that  are  adaptable  to  the  cosmic 
order  and  to  the  wants  of  his  race.  The  religious  consciousness  can 
be  revived  in  both  its  social  functions  and  its  larger  hopes.  "Sci- 
ence," says  John  Morley,  who  will  not  be  accused  of  any  orthodox  re- 
ligious prejudices,  "  when  she  has  accomplished  all  her  triumphs  in 
her  own  order,  will  still  have  to  go  back,  when  the  time  comes,  to  as- 
sist in  building  up  a  new  creed  by  which  men  can  live.  The  builders 
will  have  to  seek  material  in  the  purified  and  sublimated  ideas,  of 
which  the  confessions  and  rites  of  the  Christian  churches  have  been 
the  grosser  expression.  Just  as  what  was  once  the  new  dispensation 
was  preached  ajudceis  ad  Judceos  apudjudceos,  so  must  the  new,  that 
is  to  be,  find  a  Christian  teacher  and  Christian  hearers.  It  can  hardly 
be  other  than  an  expansion,  a  development,  a  readaptation,  of  all  the 
moral  and  spiritual  truth  that  lay  hidden  under  the  worn  out  forms. 
It  must  be  such  a  harmonizing  of  the  truth  with  our  intellectual  con- 
ceptions as  shall  fit  it  to  be  an  active  guide  to  conduct.  In  a  world 
'"where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan,  where  but  to  think  is  to 
be  full  of  sorrow,'  it  is  hard  to  imagine  a  time  when  we  shall  be  indif- 
ferent to  that  sovereign  legend  of  Pity.  We  have  to  incorporate  it  in 
some  wider  gospel  of  Justice  and  Progress." 

The  task  imposed  in  this  service  is  a  large  one  and  the  scientific 
mind,  whose  duty  it  is  to  perform  it,  is  exposed  to  the  blight  of  ten- 
dencies of  which  it  is  not  wholly  conscious.  Two  things  tend  to  de- 
humanize the  scientist :  the  concentration  of  his  life  and  thought  on  the 
iron  order  of  nature  and  the  measure  of  his  exemption  from  competition 
with  both  nature  and  his  fellows.  With  all  his  reverence  for  fact  and 
with  all  his  submission  to  laws  that  he  can  neither  make  nor  unmake, 
constant  isolation  from  the  sense  of  dependence,  and  his  consciousness 


624  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  power  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  nature  and  to  mold  its  forces  to 
his  own  will  encourage  pride  and  self-confidence,  close  the  springs  of 
humanity,  as  he  deals  only  with  physical  reality,  induce  him  to  form 
his  ideals  on  the  type  of  brute  force  and  to  imitate  the  superficial 
characteristics  of  an  order  from  which  he  has  banished  all  the  higher 
sentiments  of  art,  of  poetry,  and  of  religion.  I  do  not  mean  that  we 
need  turn  our  backs  on  nature  and  seek  again  the  ages  of  faith  for  sal- 
vation from  the  brutalities  of  that  struggle  for  existence  which  seems 
the  only  norm  of  conduct  that  nature  gives  us  for  a  gospel.  For  in 
spite  of  the  conception  which  the  orthodox  middle  ages  maintained,  or 
appeared  to  maintain,  in  regard  to  nature,  and  in  spite  of  its  boasted 
charity  and  love  of  man,  its  works  were  governed  by  the  hope  of  per- 
sonal reward  and  the  springs  of  the  good  were  not  humane  in  any  re- 
spect. Besides,  this  particular  period  and  human  character  represent 
such  moral  defects  that  one  must  regard  nature  as  very  long-suffering 
to  preserve  the  species  at  all.  But  along  with  the  scientific  spirit  has 
gone  the  consciousness  that  nature  will  not  help  us  unless  we  help  our- 
selves and  the  consciousness  that  we  cannot  depend  upon  the  future  to 
right  the  wrongs  of  the  present  in  any  artificial  manner,  a  spirit  that 
places  the  burden  of  responsibility  for  moral  achievement  upon  cour- 
age and  work,  and  so  discredits  the  indolence  of  hope  without  work, 
while  it  does  not  lessen  the  feeling  that  man  is  superior  to  the  physical 
order,  though  it  brings  him  to  see  that  his  salvation  must  be  won 
from  it  instead  of  against  it.  Pity  and  sympathy  can  flourish  more 
in  a  world  of  struggle  than  in  one  of  grace.  Yet  the  scientific  spirit 
may  easily  lose  the  guerdon  that  the  situation  offers  for  the  prize. 
The  possession  of  power  to  move  men  depends  as  much  upon  showing 
that  nature  is  on  the  side  of  human  ideals  and  morality  as  upon  the 
recognition  of  an  inexorable  order.  But  in  the  scientific  man,  the 
sense  of  the  priority  of  physical  law  to  what  is  to  be  won  by  moral 
effort  and  the  dethronement  of  emotion  from  its  natural,  and  perhaps 
dangerous  power  in  life,  leaves  him  where  he  has  to  face  the  ugly 
spectre  of  nature's  apparent  indifference  to  ideals  which  cannot  be 
realized  oxaapt  in  the  physical  order,  and  thus  to  obey  laws  that  his 
own  nature  may  not  respect  as  highly  as  it  would  personality,  could 
he  feel  convinced  of  its  presence.  The  apparent  heartlessness  of  what 
he  studies  and  the  remorseless  savagery  of  the  models  that  it  offers  to 
imitative  action,  without  any  belief  in  a  higher  purpose  than  the  actual 
order  that  he  contemplates,  require  strong  inner  principles  to  resist 
the  temptation  to  follow  "nature"  instead  of  the  humanity  that  en- 
deavors to  rise  above  it.     What  science  then  will  do  for  moral  ideals 


CONCLUSION.  625 

depends  more  on  the  man  than  upon  his  work.  Evolution  has  to  pro- 
duce the  instincts  that  will  counteract  the  narrowing  influence  of  ab- 
sorption in  physical  investigations  and  distribute  the  honors  of  progress 
equally  between  what  is  consciously  and  what  is  unconsciously  accom- 
plished. It  is  the  duty  of  science  to  add  to  what  can  be  unconsciously 
gained  from  the  world  and  as  a  part  of  this  system  is  that  immense 
mass  of  ideas  and  feelings  that  are  embodied  in  poetry  and  hope,  it 
cannot  afford  to  neglect  them  any  more  than  it  does  the  harder  facts  of 
matter  and  physical  law.  If  we  quarrel  with  nature  for  the  lack  of 
the  humanities  in  her  course,  the  obligation  is  all  the  stronger  to  re- 
spect enough  the  sense  of  superiority  we  feel  to  extort  them  from  the 
reluctant  hands  of  what  we  claim  to  master  for  our  ends.  It  is  only 
when  we  are  ignorant  of  the  ideal  that  we  are  excusable  for  imitating 
the  "  nature  "  that  the  moralist  despises.  Here  is  the  place  and  func- 
tion of  idealism.  It  is  to  stimulate  and  to  realize  what  the  conscience 
indicates  is  above  "  nature"  and  not  to  wait  for  its  spontaneous  occur- 
rence. It  is  not  a  revelation  that  we  want,  but  achievement.  But  the 
scientific  man  is  in  danger  of  abandoning  an  ideal  because  he  does  not 
find  it  ready  made  and  he  may  sacrifice  its  inspiration  and  influence 
for  mere  grubbing  in  the  mephitic  mines  of  matter,  sensible  only  of 
the  colder  stoic  passion  of  courage  to  endure  what  he  cannot  respect 
or  admire.  Poetry  and  religion,  though  they  have  too  often  been  led 
to  look  for  peace  outside  the  scientific  world,  have  a  function  there  for 
those  minds  that  can  see  in  it  the  chance  for  moral  development,  and 
it  requires  only  that  they  accommodate  their  vision  to  the  real  and 
idealize  that,  if  they  hope  to  rob  scientific  enthusiasm  of  its  sting. 
But  if  science  take  their  place  for  humanizing  man  it  must  exhibit  suf- 
ficient moral  interest  and  power  to  inspire  high  ideals,  or  at  least  not 
to  stifle  them.  In  its  mastery  over  matter,  however,  it  is  exposed  to 
all  the  temptations  of  the  cynic  and  may  cool  the  ardor  of  youth  in  a 
passionless  search  for  facts  when  wonder  and  beauty  have  lost  their 
power  But  let  these  retain  their  inspiration  and  the  opportunity  is 
open  for  the  union  of  the  scientific  and  the  religious  spirit,  provided, 
however,  that  the  latter  may  concede  to  science  the  right  to  form  our 
creeds.  Religion,  as  a  name  for  the  serious  view  of  life,  may  furnish 
the  emotional  attitude  toward  reality  and  the  motive  power  for  action, 
but  it  must  leave  to  science  the  determination  of  what  is  true. 

The  objection  to  such  a  reconciliation  between  science  and  religion 
would  be  that  it  involves  the  complete  surrender  of  the  latter  to  the 
former  and  that  it  leaves  nothing  to  religion  which  had  characterized 
its  very  essence.     Its  fundamental  conceptions  have  been  the  existence 


Cz6  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  God,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  at  least  in  Christianity,  and  the 
various  beliefs  that  represent  a  cosmic  dispensation  ever  in  the  per- 
sonal interests  of  man  present  and  future.  It  will  be  said  that  the 
reconciliation  proposed  offers  no  rational  substitute  for  these.  Such 
an  objection,  however,  is  partly  true  and  partly  false.  I  have  not  pro- 
posed any  dogmatic  doctrines  against  scepticism  and  scientific  method, 
but  I  have  endeavored  to  preserve  what  is  important  in  both  move- 
ments. It  is  impossible  to  read  the  history  of  the  conflict  between  the 
two  tendencies  without  recognizing  frankly  the  extent  to  which  re- 
ligion or  theology  has  been  humiliatingly  defeated  in  its  claims,  and 
this  makes  it  necessary  to  frankly  admit  that,  unless  it  can  show  func- 
tions unattackable  by  cosmic  science,  it  must  go  the  way  of  all  the  an- 
cient religions.  The  fundamental  difficulty  with  much  of  what  re- 
ligion has  taught  has  been  the  impossibility  of  testing  its  assertions  in 
the  same  way  that  any  alleged  fact  could  be  tested.  A  scientific  and 
critical  age  must  try  every  assertion  by  experience  and  if  it  is  inter- 
pretable  in  these  terms  it  is  credible;  otherwise  it  is  not.  Greco- 
Roman  mythology  was  the  earliest  form  of  religion  for  those  people, 
and  it  has  wholly  disappeared,  except  as  a  reservoir  of  literary  refer- 
ence, and  for  the  reasons  that  it  was  too  anthropomorphic  to  be  toler- 
ated by  the  spirit  of  science  and  that  it  had  no  ethical  and  social  mo- 
tives and  connections  adequate  to  a  properly  humanizing  mission.  If 
was  perhaps  the  most  extensive  and  most  explicit  system  of  con- 
ceptions that  the  human  mind  ever  formed  impersonating  and  sym- 
bolizing in  anthropomorphic  types  the  operations  of  natural  forces. 
The  early  Greeks  saw  and  felt  nature  in  its  relation  to  man,  not  men 
in  relation  to  each  other.  Hence  their  religion  was  naturalistic  and 
obtained  no  social  content.  Hence  their  mythological  religion  disap- 
peared like  a  morning  mist  before  scientific  and  philosophic  criticism, 
though  there  remained  in  Platonism  and  Neo-Platonism  a  consuming 
desire  to  see  the  cosmic  order  in  the  light  of  a  system  in  some  way 
identified  with  the  interests  of  man.  But  the  general  reaction  was 
into  a  triumphant  or  despondent  materialism.  When  Christianity 
came  to  reconstruct  the  religious  system  which  it  made  more  or  less 
anthropomorphic,  it  did  so  more  consistently  with  the  spirit  of  sci- 
ence, as  it  admitted  that  intelligence  was  secondarily  connected  with 
physical  events.  It  conceded  an  enormous  field  to  the  operations  of 
"  natural  law"  after  the  initial  act  of  creation  had  been  effected  and  so 
was  less  anthropomorphic  than  mythology.  But  it  also  had  the  good 
fortune  to  identify  itself  with  philanthropic  and  ethical  impulses  which 
were  as  much  its  primary  characteristic  as  any  creed  about  the  tran- 


CONCLUSION.  627 

scendental  world.  It  was  only  the  decline  of  the  ethical  motive  and 
the  extension  of  the  philosophic  that  brought  it  into  conflict  with  cos- 
mic problems  of  more  enlightened  ages.  But  even  in  this  develop- 
ment it  was  the  moral  and  social  impulses  in  the  system  that  did  as 
much  to  preserve  it  as  its  philosophic  creed,  and  perhaps  more.  In 
this  respect  it  completely  contrasts  with  Greco-Roman  religions. 
These,  as  I  have  remarked  above,  never  had  the  social  and  moral  con- 
tent that  infused  Christianity  with  a  passion  for  humanity,  even  though 
this  was  tinctured  with  a  primary  interest  in  a  future  life  beyond  the 
grave.  Greco-Roman  religions  were  a  little  more  than  superstitions 
about  nature.  The  functions  of  ethics  were  left  to  philosophy  which 
was  sharply  distinguished  from  religion  by  its  opposition  to  anthropo- 
morphism. But  Christianity  more  or  less  identified  itself  with  philos- 
ophy in  the  course  of  its  development  and  enforced  something  of  a 
compromise  with  anthropomorphism  while  it  clung  to  its  ethical  im- 
pulses and  to  the  hope  of  a  future  life.  Its  vitality  depended  upon 
this  fact.  But  in  the  course  of  time  it  allowed  its  science  to  atrophy, 
or  to  become  a  lifeless  system  of  dogmatism  in  conflict  with  new  dis- 
coveries and  so  endangered  its  ethics  by  their  association  with  decadent 
cosmic  beliefs.  Its  continued  usefulness  will  depend  upon  the  conver- 
sion of  its  energy  and  enthusiasm  into  the  ethical  problems  of  civiliza- 
tion and  the  adjustment  of  its  creed  to  the  methods  and  results  of  sci- 
ence. It  may  as  well  face  this  condition  and  make  its  peace  with  sci- 
ence frankly  and  without  reservation.  It  can  do  this  with  good  grace, 
if  science  should  succeed  in  giving  a  future  life  of  the  soul  the  same 
status  that  evolution  and  gravitation  have.  But  its  priesthood  must 
have  the  courage  to  lead  and  not  to  follow  in  this  movement.  A  new 
Protestantism  is  needed  which  will  insist  that  religion  needs  as  much 
reforming  as  science  needs  the  leaven  of  moral  impulse.  One  main 
difficulty  is  that  there  is  too  little  freedom  for  those  who  would  correct 
the  errors  of  the  religious  mind  by  plain  speaking.  The  priesthood 
that  is  able  and  willing  to  reform  it,  are  not  permitted  to  do  it  in  the 
only  way  in  which  reform  is  possible  and  the  same  influences  keep  the 
institutional  scientific  man  silent,  while  the  most  intellectual  men  who 
would  like  to  do  man  a  service  as  his  ethical  and  religious  teacher  are 
not  conceded  the  requisite  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  and  must  re- 
sort to  the  professions  for  a  career.  But  the  time  is  past  in  which  we 
can  insist  that  all  the  concessions  shall  be  made  by  science.  It  has 
vindicated  itself  by  its  actual  success  as  a  guide  to  human  conviction, 
and  it  is  possible  that  it  may,  in  the  near  future,  supply  all  the  credi- 
bility that  the  immortality  of  the  soul  can  have,  and  this  doctrine  was 


62 S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  is  the  foundation  of  Christianity,  even  in  its  ethical  ideas.  Its 
hope  lies  in  alliance  with  science  and  not  in  antagonism  with  it.  In 
many  of  its  leaders  it  already  shows  this  disposition,  but  it  requires  to 
be  conscious,  intelligent  and  unreserved.  It  must  abandon  all  perse- 
cuting spirit  and  have  as  much  faith  in  science  as  it  has  tried  to  cultivate 
hate  against  it.  The  virtues  which  it  inculcates  in  men  toward  each 
other  with  its  professions  of  faith  it  must  adopt  toward  the  scientific 
world,  and  it  will  find  itself  met  half  way  and  receive  as  much  strength 
from  voluntary  humility  as  it  does  from  the  alliance  with  science. 

The  comparative  functions  of  reason  and  faith  come  under  consid- 
eration in  this  connection.  It  is  but  another  way  of  stating  the  rela- 
tion between  science  and  religion.  The  historical  controversy  under 
these  terms  makes  it  necessary  to  give  it  at  least  a  passing  notice,  and 
it  represents  the  form  of  conception  in  which  many  minds  understand 
the  problem.  Philosophy  and  science  have  stood  for  the  supremacy 
of  reason  and  religion  for  that  of  faith.  There  have  been  differences 
between  philosophy  and  science,  but  they  were  not  radical.  Their 
general  spirit  is  the  same  and  to  some  extent  their  territory.  Both  are 
concerned  with  the  cosmic  order,  whether  material  or  spiritual,  and 
both  have  aimed  to  correct  mythological  and  anthropomorphic  concep- 
tions of  the  world.  Religion,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
has  conserved  the  latter,  and  whenever  it  has  been  baffled  by  reason  to 
support  tradition  and  authority,  it  has  appealed  to  faith  as  some  agency 
for  validating  doctrines  which  are  otherwise  incredible. 

Both  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  the  religious  position  is  shown 
in  this  appeal  to  "  faith."  The  term  is  so  equivocal  that  it  may  com- 
prise either  an  important  truth  or  the  most  fatal  of  all  errors.  I  may 
summarize  its  various  meanings,  (i)  Intuition  as  prior  to  and  the 
basis  of  all  ratiocinative  or  reasoned  truth;  (2)  inductive  as  opposed 
to  deductive  or  demonstrative  conclusion;  (3)  acceptance  of  truth  on 
authority  and  not  on  personal  insight ;  (4)  fidelity  of  will  toward  a 
person  or  principle  of  conduct.  There  are  corresponding  equivoca- 
tions in  the  use  of  the  term  "  reason,"  some  of  them  actually  coinciding 
with  some  of  those  for  "faith."  (1)  Personal  insight  as  opposed  to 
authority.  Intuitive  as  well  as  ratiocinative  processes;  (2)  ratiocin- 
ative as  distinct  from  intuitive  processes;  (3)  deductive  and  demon- 
strative ratiocination  as  distinct  from  both  intuitive  and  inductive 
action  ;  (4)  critical  investigation  of  present  facts  as  opposed  to  the 
blind  acceptance  of  tradition  and  authority. 

It  will  be  apparent  to  any  reader  what  conflicts  may  arise  from 
these  various  conceptions,  not  only  between  "reason"  and  "faith," 


CONCLUSION.  629 

but  also  between  the  different  meanings  of  each  term.  I  need  not  go 
into  any  elaborate  examination  of  the  claims  of  any  particular  applica- 
tion of  either  term,  as  each  and  all  would  be  subject  to  the  qualification 
which  the  elimination  of  equivocation  would  effect.  With  the  proper 
definitions  and  limitations  a  function  for  both  "  reason"  and  "  faith" 
is  perfectly  possible,  and  equally  possible  would  be  their  opposition 
according  to  definition  and  application.  Thus  if  "reason"  be  ratio- 
cinative  and  "faith"  intuitive,  there  is  no  necessary  conflict  because 
process  and  object  are  supposed  to  be  different.  If  "reason"  be  de- 
ductive and  "faith"  inductive  there  is  no  necessary  conflict,  as  they 
would  differ  only  in  the  modality  of  their  judgments.  But  in  the 
course  of  intellectual  development  "reason"  has  come  generally  to 
stand  for  both  a  method  of  obtaining  a  conviction  and  a  certitude  of 
mind  which  is  contrasted  with  "faith,"  while  this  "faith"  has  fluc- 
tuated between  a  mental  condition  which  supplied  the  basis  for 
"reason"  and  some  sort  of  conviction  which  was  not  necessarily  a 
basis  for  reasoned  truth  of  any  kind,  but  a  sort  of  mixture  of  chance 
and  induction,  or  acceptance  of  what  could  not  be  "proved,"  though 
it  may  have  some  slight  probability  in  its  favor  as  against  the  opposite 
view.  All  these,  however,  represent  the  matter  as  a  process  of  ar- 
riving at  convictions,  whether  fixed  or  suspended,  absolute  or  tenta- 
tive, and  do  not  concern  the  subject  matter  involved.  But  in  the  con- 
troversy between  science  and  religion  the  primary  question  has  not  been 
the  process  of  obtaining  knowledge  but  the  objects  of  it,  the  proposi- 
tions of  which  assent  is  affirmed  or  denied.  The  conflict  has  been 
about  the  subject  matter,  not  the  mental  process.  The  shifting  of  the 
controversy  over  to  the  question  of  process  only  evaded  the  real  dis- 
pute's "faith"  has  practically  stood  for  the  insistence  for  certain 
dogmas  against  the  invulnerable  conclusions  of  science,  and  gained 
illegitimate  support  by  the  effort  to  apply  the  term  to  a  process  which 
can  be  opposed  to  "reason"  only  as  ratiocinative  certitude  is  distin- 
guished from  ratiocinative  probability.  In  the  controversy,  therefore, 
we  must  distinguish  radically  between  the  question  of  process  affecting 
the  modality  of  conviction  and  the  subject  matter  of  assent  or  denial. 
"  Faith  "  has  too  often  been  the  appeal  for  the  support  of  truth  when 
the  alleged  fact  was  not  supportable  by  "  reason,"  as  an  organon  of 
fact  and  experience.  "Faith"  as  an  inductive  process,  which  is  the 
only  legitimate  meaning  of  the  term  as  implying  assent  to  propositions, 
,  may  very  well  guarantee  conviction  in  scientific  matters  as  well  as  in 
religion,  but  as  a  quality  of  will  it  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  only 
way  to  give  it  a  function  which  science  cannot  attack  is  to  limit  it  to 


630  THE  PROBLEMS   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

this  quality  of  will  toward  a  person  or  principle.  But  to  give  it  the 
function  of  determining  probability  as  distinct  from  certitude  concedes 
it  a  place  in  science  and  does  not  make  it  the  organon  of  religion  solely, 
but  opens  the  way  for  convictions  in  science  quite  as  opposed  to  reli- 
gious dogma  as  any  demonstrative  truth  against  it.  A  probability  in 
science  is  quite  as  cogent  for  creating  scepticism  as  a  certitude  when  the 
choice  has  to  be  made  between  the  more  and  the  less  probable.  The 
consequence  is  that  "faith"  can  have  no  function  independent  of  the 
authority  of  science,  unless  it  limits  its  meaning  to  the  quality  of  will 
which  conforms  conduct  to  the  best  that  we  know  and  waits  for  further 
knowledge. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Kant's  philosophy  provides  a  perfect 
reconciliation  between  science  and  religion,  between  "  reason "  and 
"faith,"  by  virtue  of  the  admission  that,  although  God  and  immor- 
tality cannot  be  disproved,  they  may  be  objects  of  "faith."  The 
argument  may  be  stated  somewhat  thus.  Kant  maintains  that  God 
and  immortality  cannot  be  proved.  In  ordinary  parlance  this  nega- 
tive conclusion  is  tantamount  to  the  admission  that  they  cannot  be 
believed,  as  it  is  wrongfully  assumed  that  the  absence  of  evidence  is 
equivalent  to  the  denial  of  the  fact.  It  is  this  negative  side  of  Kant, 
that  is,  his  negation  of  the  positive  argument,  that  is  usually  empha- 
sized by  the  sceptic.  But  Kant  was  also  quite  as  emphatic  in  main- 
taining that  the  existence  of  God  and  immortality  could  not  be  dis- 
proved, and  in  this  balance  between  proof  and  disproof,  the  position 
of  pure  agnosticism,  Kant  was  supposed  to  guarantee  the  rights  of 
"faith"  to  believe  or  assert  what  "reason"  could  neither  certify  nor 
discredit.  This  appears  to  say  that  if  you  call  a  mental  process 
"reason"  it  cannot  do  what  it  can  do  if  you  call  it  "faith."  To  the 
present  writer  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  such  a  method  of 
reconciling  science  and  religion.  The  incompetency  of  the  mind  in 
any  field  shuts  out  the  right  to  form  any  judgment  in  it  whatever. 

Such  a  view,  however,  does  not  exactly  represent  the  doctrine  of 
Kant.  He  does  not  explicitly  state  the  case  in  any  such  way,  although 
there  is  much  in  his  point  of  view  to  suggest  this  conception  as  the 
brief  way  of  indicating  his  doctrine.  What  Kant  does  is  to  draw  the 
distinction  between  "faith"  (Glauben)  and  "knowledge"  (  Wissen  ) 
in  a  way  to  indicate  that  the  difference  is  between  personal  convic- 
tions, subjectively  sufficient,  and  truth  that  can  be  dogmatically  proved, 
objectively  sufficient,  that  is,  between  what  one  can  believe  himself 
and  what  he  can  make  others  believe.  But  he  did  not  develop  in  the 
Kritik  the  basis  upon  which  this  personal  belief  rested.     He  did  this 


CONCLUSION.  631 

in  his  later  work  on  practical  reason  where  he  made  the  argument 
"moral"  and  not  "logical."  I  do  not  think  that  his  procedure  was 
valid  without  the  recognition  of  the  theoretical  principle  which  gave 
his  argument  what  little  force  it  possessed.  He  assumed  the  explana- 
tory power  of  "  nature,"  which  in  fact  it  did  not  possess,  and  so  forced 
himself  to  conceive  God  as  transcendent  instead  of  immanent,  and  con- 
sequently had  no  argument  but  the  "moral"  to  support  it.  But  he 
did  not  see  that  the  actual  cogency  so  often  felt  for  this  argument  was 
derived  from  the  element  of  inductive  reason  involved  in  it. 

There  are  two  fundamental  weaknesses  in  Kant's  discussion  of  the 
problem.  The  first  is  his  conception  of  God  which  he  accepted  from  the 
scholastic  dualism  that  his  own  position  destroyed,  a  conception  which 
was  the  a  priori  consequence  of  the  assumed  nature  of  matter  and  not 
the  result  of  inference  from  proved  facts.  Had  Kant  seen  that  the  idea 
of  "  nature  "  did  not  involve  the  explanatory  at  all ;  had  he  seen  that  the 
primary  conception  of  causality  was  neither  phenomenal  nor  cosmo- 
logical,  and  had  he  sought  to  form  his  conception  of  God  from  the 
facts  of  nature,  as  this  duty  was  implied  by  his  respect  for  the  teleo- 
logical  argument,  instead  of  assuming  that  its  cogency  applied  to  the 
scholastic  transcendentalism,  he  would  have  had  no  grounds  to  resort 
to  "faith"  as  the  organ  of  belief  regarding  God  and  immortality. 
The  second  weakness  of  Kant's  doctrine  was  his  failure  to  consider  the 
problem  of  induction  in  his  conception  of  "reason"  and  "proof." 
Kant  borrowed  his  whole  conception  of  "reason"  from  the  scholastic 
idea  of  ratiocination  as  the  primary  function  or  organon  of  truth.  In 
the  crucial  situations  affecting  his  argument  his  "reason"  does  not 
mean  the  mind  as  a  whole  but  the  logical  and  deductive  process  which 
was  the  scholastic  and  dogmatic  agency  for  determining  conviction. 
Though  he  recognizes  "  experience"  as  the  source  of  ideas  he  does  not 
develop  the  logic  of  it,  which  is  inductive,  but  only  the  "judgments  of 
experience."  This  would  have  been  to  admit  as  a  function  of  "rea- 
son" something  more  than  ua  priori"  and  deductive  demonstration 
or  "  proof,"  and  so  to  have  applied  the  idea  of  "proof"  to  the  induc- 
tive process  as  well;  that  is,  to  have  admitted  two  kinds  of  "proof," 
one  inductive  and  the  other  deductive.  But  Kant  had  such  a  strong 
predilection  for  the  scholastic  habit  of  assigning  "reason"  the  func- 
tion of  determining  certitude  that  he  never  conceived  the  place  of  in- 
ductive ratiocination  in  the  theory  of  "  knowledge,"  a  view  that  appeals 
to  evidence  and  fact  for  its  support  of  conviction,  and  consequently, 
when  he  conceded  "faith"  a  function  in  the  formation  of  convictions 
on  transcendental  matters  he  seemed  to  favor  the  very  dogmatism  which 


632  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

he  sought  to  eradicate ;  for  it  may  he  said  that  it  had  nearly  always 
made  God  and  immortality  objects  of  this  function,  and  when  "  rea- 
son "  was  appealed  to  it  was  with  the  purpose  of  increasing  the  mind's 
certitude  on  such  matters  and  sustaining  the  idea  that  there  was  a  con- 
nection between  the  transcendental  and  phenomenal  worlds,  a  connec- 
tion that  was  admitted  by  Kant  when  he  assumed  the  existence  of  an 
•"unknown"  cause  (  Ursache  )  of  phenomena.  His  strenuous  denial 
of  the  competency  of  "  reason  "  to  certify  the  great  doctrines  of  re- 
ligion, assuming  "reason"  to  be  the  deductive  and  a  priori  function 
of  intelligence,  and  failing  to  analyze  and  use  the  inductive  method  in 
his  theory,  he  prevented  himself  from  making  "faith"  consistent  with 
science  and  reason  by  giving  it  an  inductive  function  in  the  formation 
of  convictions  and  affording  some  measure  of  probability  or  choice  in 
favor  of  one  or  the  other  alternatives  in  belief.  But  the  impression 
left  by  Kant's  conclusion  was  that  "reason"  could  do  nothing  and 
"faith"  everything  in  the  important  beliefs  of  the  world,  while  he 
said  nothing  to  show  the  value  of  the  "reason"  he  accepted  in  the 
phenomena  of  nature.  The  real  or  anomalous  character  of  this  po- 
sition consisted  in  the  facts  that  mankind  regarded  God  and  immor- 
tality as  fundamentally  more  important  than  any  truth  about  the  cosmos 
and  the  present  life  and  that  Kant  would  neither  affirm  nor  deny  this 
fact,  while  he  discredited  the  competency  of  "  reason  "  in  the  transcen- 
dental and  held  it  competent  for  the  phenomena  in  which  no  one  had 
any  ethical  interest.  If  Kant  had  explicitly  declared  that  the  field  in 
which  "reason"  was  competent  had  no  importance  for  ethics  and  re- 
ligion and  that  the  field  in  which  it  was  incompetent  was  all-important, 
his  relation  to  religion  would  have  been  clear,  consistent,  and  intelli- 
gible. But  it  was  necessary  to  throw  a  sop  to  Cerberus  and  the  most 
convenient  way  to  pacify  the  monster  was  to  admit  a  function  for 
"faith"  and  to  remain  silent  on  the  valuation  of  "reason"  in  the 
sphere  of  the  natural  and  the  phenomenal.  Kant,  therefore,  has  done 
nothing  to  reconcile  science  and  religion,  because  he  is  hopelessly  in- 
volved in  the  meshes  of  a  dualism,  one  term  of  which  is  "unknowable" 
and  the  other  presumably  worthless  for  morality. 

The  function  of  "  faith,"  as  I  have  suggested  above  in  the  analysis 
of  the  equivocations  attaching  to  the  term,  must  be  clearly  defined  in 
all  attempts  to  estimate  its  relation  to  scientific  methods.  Wherever 
it  is  assigned  a  function  for  determining  a  mental  attitude  toward 
propositions,  it  can  only  be  more  or  less  identical  with  some  process 
of  reason,  whether  intuitive  or  ratiocinative,  deductive  or  inductive. 
Wherever  it  is  a  quality  of  will  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  assent  to 


C  ONCL  US/ON.  63  3 

truth  of  any  kind,  but  with  the  readiness  to  test  any  alleged  truth  by  con- 
formity practically  to  what  it  demands.  This  assigns  it  the  function 
of  expectation  in  a  situation  where  necessity  is  not  a  quality  of  the 
conceptions  involved.  As  assent  to  propositions  it  has  always  been 
distinguished  from  deductive  ratiocination  and  so  has  fluctuated  be- 
tween intuition  or  personal  insight  and  the  acceptance  of  truth  on 
authority  with  the  minimum  of  inductive  reasoning  involved,  this  be- 
ing limited  to  the  possibility  of  a  truth  as  attested  by  the  character  and 
knowledge  of  the  assertor.  This  conception,  however,  absolutely  pre- 
vents any  conflict  with  science  by  making  it  a  function  in  the  study  of 
phenomenal  facts  as  well  as  in  the  acceptance  of  the  transphenomenal, 
and  so  cuts  religion  off  from  any  other  court  of  appeal  than  scientific 
method  itself.  But  considered  as  expectation,  a  state  of  mind  on  the 
border-line  between  assent  and  action,  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
determination  of  truth,  certain  or  probable,  but  with  the  prudence  of 
action  in  accordance  with  a  possible  or  probable  fact  not  immediately 
or  certainly  known.  This  conception  also  leaves  to  scientific  method 
the  determination  of  all  convictions. 

It  remains  to  consider  the  work  of  philosophy  in  the  general  de- 
velopment of  man  and  in  the  problems  between  science  and  religion. 
1  shall  treat  it  as  essentially  the  same  with  science.  It  only  happens 
that  the  narrower  conception  of  the  term  "  science,"  whether  as  the 
study  of  physical  phenomena  alone  or  as  a  mere  study  of  the  laws,  the 
coexistence  and  sequences,  of  all  events  of  whatever  kind,  is  not  com- 
monly understood  to  represent  the  critical  study  of  conceptions  or 
metaphysical  problems.  The  broader  meaning  of  the  term  includes 
these,  as  it  concerns  method  rather  than  subject  matter  alone.  But  as 
the  usual  habit  of  defining  an  inquiry  is  determined  by  its  subject  mat- 
ter or  territory,  the  reflective  study  of  ideas  and  of  problems  beyond 
44  empirical  science  "  in  the  field  of  physical  phenomena  gets  the  name 
of  "  Philosophy,"  as  distinguished  from  nomological  questions. 
"Philosophy"  thus  happens  to  study  problems  which  "science"  has 
not  often  under  that  name  presumed  to  consider,  especially  when  they 
have  been  complicated  with  psychological  factors.  There  is  a  com- 
mon field,  however,  in  cosmic  problems  even  when  the  purpose  and 
mode  of  discussing  them  is  not  the  same.  But  in  all  history  "  phi- 
losophy "  has  been  expected  to  consider  the  most  general  questions  of 
nature  and  mind  and  this  makes  it  the  final  arbiter  in  all  the  matters 
that  have  been  discussed  in  this  conclusion,  though  it  is  conditioned  in 
its  work,  as  I  think  and  insist,  by  the  methods  and  results  of  the 
44  empirical"  and  physical  sciences. 


634  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  one  general  problem  which  usually  distinguishes  philosophy 
from  the  particular  sciences  is  the  reciprocal  relation  of  man  and  cosmos. 
This  has  always  been  an  absorbing  theme  with  certain  types  of  mind 
and  it  concentrates  itself  in  the  questions  of  ethics  and  religion  and 
these  about  the  existence  of  God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
"It  is  justly  said,"  says  John  Morley,  "  that  at  the  bottom  of  all  the 
great  discussions  of  modern  society  lie  the  two  momentous  questions, 
first  whether  there  is  a  God,  and  second  whether  the  soul  is  immortal. 
In  other  words,  whether  our  fellow-creatures  are  the  highest  beings 
who  take  an  interest  in  us,  or  in  whom  we  need  take  an  interest ;  and, 
then,  whether  life  in  this  world  is  the  only  life  of  which  we  shall  ever 
be  conscious.  It  is  true  of  most  people  that  when  they  are  talking  of 
evolution,  and  the  origin  of  species,  and  the  experiential  or  intuitional 
source  of  ideas,  and  the  utilitarian  or  transcendental  basis  of  moral 
obligation,  these  are  the  questions  which  they  really  have  in  their 
minds.  Now,  in  spite  of  the  scientific  activity  of  the  day,  nobody  is 
likely  to  contend  that  men  are  pressed  keenly  in  their  souls  by  any 
poignant  stress  of  spiritual  tribulation  in  the  face  of  the  two  supreme 
enigmas.  Nobody  will  say  that  there  is  much  of  that  striving  and 
wrestling  and  bitter  agonizing,  which  whole  societies  of  men  have  felt 
before  now  on  questions  of  far  less  tremendous  import.  Ours,  as  has 
been  truly  said,  is  '  a  time  of  loud  disputes  and  weak  convictions.'  In 
a  generation  deeply  impressed  by  a  sense  of  intellectual  responsibility 
this  could  not  be.  As  it  is,  even  superior  men  are  better  pleased  to 
play  about  the  height  of  these  great  arguments,  to  fly  in  busy  intel- 
lectual sport  from  side  to  side,  from  aspect  to  aspect,  than  they  are 
intent  on  resolving  what  it  is,  after  all,  that  the  discussion  comes  to 
and  to  which  solution,  when  everything  has  been  said  and  heard,  the 
balance  of  truth  really  seems  to  incline.  There  are  too  many  giggling 
epigrams ;  people  are  too  willing  to  look  on  collections  of  mutually 
hostile  opinions  with  the  same  kind  of  curiosity  which  they  bestow  on 
a  collection  of  mutually  hostile  beasts  in  a  menagerie.  They  have 
very  faint  predilections  for  one  rather  than  the  other.  If  they  were 
truly  alive  to  the  duty  of  conclusiveness,  or  to  the  inexpressible  mag- 
nitude, of  the  subjects  which  nominally  occupy  their  minds,  but  really 
only  exercise  their  tongues,  this  elegant  Pyrrhonism  would  be  impos- 
sible, and  this  light-hearted  neutrality  most  unendurable." 

Such  being  the  fact  the  duty  of  philosophy  is  to  have  some  in- 
telligible message  on  the  great  issues  that  have  been  mentioned.  In 
Plato  and  Aristotle  this  responsibility  was  felt  and  philosophy  con- 
tinued its  service  in  that  field,  whether  for  good  or  ill,  until  the  time 


C  ONCL  US  ION.  635 

of  Kant.  But  the  outcome  of  Kant's  work  was  such  a  spirit  of  agnos- 
ticism and  the  intolerance  of  the  religious  world  toward  honest  doubt 
has  been  so  effective,  that  philosophy  cannot  speak  its  mind  so  freely 
as  is  necessary  to  insure  its  usefulness.  It  has  been  obliged  to  confine 
its  reflections  to  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  problems  that  have  no 
manner  of  human  interest  in  general,  however  important  they  may  be 
for  the  philosopher  himself.  It  should  be  free  to  speak  as  freely  against 
religious  illusions  as  it  is  to  utter  unintelligible  and  eulogistic  phrases 
that  are  construed  as  a  defence  of  it,  but  which  are  only  subterfuges 
for  the  alteration  of  its  meaning.  It  has  not  been  as  a  fact  institution- 
ally free,  ever  since  Kant,  to  correct  the  tendencies  of  the  religious 
mind  to  cling  to  sensational  and  anthropomorphic  views,  but  has  been 
obliged  to  compromise  itself  by  an  idealism  that  is  as  unintelligible  to 
science  as  it  is  deceptive  to  religion  of  the  prevalent  type.  It  is  only 
outside  institutional  philosophy  that  we  can  get  any  bold  critical  work. 
The  work  and  influence  of  Mr.  Spencer  is  evidence  of  this.  No  aca- 
demic philosophy  will  compare  with  his  in  power  and  effect,  whatever 
adverse  judgment  we  pronounce  upon  his  system.  It  has  been  the 
academic  philosopher  that  has  attacked  Mr.  Spencer  most  vigorously 
and  that  attack  has  been  directed  almost  exclusively  against  his  "  meta- 
physics "  of  the  "  Unknowable  "  while  his  doctrine  of  the  u  knowable," 
his  science,  which  was  as  much  or  more  opposed  to  the  ordinary  re- 
ligious conceptions  than  any  of  his  "metaphysical"  agnosticism,  was 
systematically  ignored.  It  was  his  doctrine  of  evolution  that  played 
such  havoc  with  the  prevailing  theology  and  not  his  agnosticism, 
though  the  theological  world  allowed  the  reverse  idea  to  survive  as 
long  as  possible.  Now  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  made  it  clear  in  the  last 
edition  of  the  "  First  Principles  "  that  the  doctrine  of  the  "  knowable  " 
is  not  logically  dependent  upon  the  correctness  of  his  theory  of  the 
"  Unknowable,"  there  is  no  longer  any  excuse  for  using  an  easy  victory 
over  his  "  metaphysics,"  that  are  undoubtedly  vulnerable  in  their  logic 
and  misunderstanding  of  the  problem,  to  insinuate  but  not  assert  that 
this  result  is  favorable  to  religion  while  the  science  of  the  "  knowable ' 
retains  its  integrity  against  it.  It  does  not  save  the  reputation  of  the 
philosopher  to  permit  the  public  to  draw  an  inference  from  the  attack 
on  Spencer's  agnosticism,  which  the  philosopher  himself  does  not  re- 
gard as  valid.  But  this  has  been  the  general  course  of  his  critics  to 
vociferously  denounce  his  "  metaphysics"  and  to  remain  silent  on  the 
more  destructive  character  of  his  science.  It  were  better  if  the  aca- 
demic world  could  frankly  and  boldly  announce  a  doctrine  of  agnosticism 
in  religious  matters,  as  sincerity,  clearness,  and  directness  are  more  in- 


636  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

fluential  and  redeeming  with  honest  thinkers  than  any  amount  of  canting 
concession.  It  is  certain  that  the  jargon  of  Kanto-Hegelianism  contains 
no  definite  message  but  agnosticism  that  can  be  intelligible  to  any  but 
the  initiated.  It  may  be  true,  as  we  please  to  regard  it.  That  I  am 
not  disputing.  But  how  does  it  affect  the  great  general  questions  in 
which  the  human  race  rightly  or  wrongly  is  interested  ?  Can  it  firmly 
and  openly  defend  the  secular  against  the  religious  or  the  religious 
against  the  secular  view  of  life,  as  they  are  ordinarily  understood?  Or 
can  it  mediate  with  sufficient  clearness  and  earnestness  between  them  ? 
It  certainly  has  not  effected  any  of  these  results  and  its  action  is  not  quali- 
fied to  effect  them.  If  the  Kantian  and  Hegelian  systems  were  clear 
enough  to  have  their  sceptical  position  definitely  understood,  the  problem 
would  be  explicitly  defined  and  we  should  know  what  we  believe  regard- 
ing them  when  we  approached  religion  and  its  claims.  But  unfortu- 
nately they  disguise  their  real  spirit  and  have  not  the  courage  or  the  free- 
dom to  defend  it.  They  will  not  boldly  defend  the  value  of  scepticism 
for  man,  but  content  themselves  with  the  concealment  of  positivism  be- 
hind metaphysical  language.  This  only  makes  them  hard  to  understand 
when  they  might  as  well  be  clear.  I  accord  them  the  value  of  making 
hard  students  who  have  first  to  understand  philosophy  before  they  can 
understand  these  masters,  but  they  have  hardly  any  other  service  when 
it  comes  to  producing  clear  and  earnest  convictions.  The  philosopher's 
first  duty  is  to  think  out  his  problems  in  his  own  language  and  to  give 
the  result  the  widest  intelligibility  and  acceptance  that  are  possible. 
This  is  especially  true,  as  I  have  remarked,  in  a  democracy.  Philos- 
ophy, like  everything  else  in  democratic  civilizations,  must  extend 
its  service  to  the  community  at  large  or  lose  its  place  in  education.  It 
must  have  a  message  for  the  world  in  general,  and  it  must  be  able  to 
make  that  message  clear.  It  does  not  require  that  it  shall  pander  to 
prejudice  and  ignorance  as  the  price  of  influence.  There  are  various 
ways  of  a  perfectly  honest  sort  by  which  it  may  correct  the  errors  and 
illusions  of  the  world  without  compromising  its  dignity  or  integrity 
and  without  antagonizing  the  ideals  that  are  imprisoned  even  in  the 
basest  of  superstitions.  All  that  it  requires  is  sufficient  knowledge  of 
life  and  elasticity  of  mind  to  adjust  its  work  to  the  complexity  of  the 
situation,  stating  clearly  the  strong  and  the  weak  aspects  of  the  re- 
ligious temperament,  and  to  feel  enough  for  all  orders  of  men  to  show 
the  application  of  philosophic  thought  to  the  commonest  details  of  life. 
Unfortunately,  ever  since  Kant,  it  has  had  no  positive  message  for 
the  world,  such  as  would  be  regarded  as  helpful.  Having  left  to 
"faith"  the  belief  of  what  has  presumptively  no  rational  evidence  for 


CONCLUSION.  637 

its  existence ;  having  adopted  the  gospel  of  agnosticism  under  the  guise 
of  an  idealism  which  vociferously  denounces  a  materialism  that  is 
harmless  or  irrelevant  to  the  great  problems  of  human  interest  as  ordi- 
narily conceived,  and  having  cut  itself  loose  from  the  '«  empirical"  and 
physical  sciences  in  both  method  and  results,  it  is  wandering  about  in 
a  priori  reflections  on  nature  that  appear  to  have  a  meaning  because 
the  language  in  which  they  are  couched  seems  to  favor  the  religious 
view,  while  their  real  conceptions  are  concealed  behind  equivocations 
which  few  detect.  It  will  not  explicitly  and  courageously  emphasize 
the  nature  and  extent  of  our  agnosticism  in  regard  to  the  claims  of 
"faith,"  or  better,  the  illusory  and  erroneous  conception  of  the  com- 
mon religious  mind.  It  either  evades  them  altogether  and  concentrates 
its  attention  upon  the  problem  of  epistemology  which  has  a  purely 
minor  interest,  unless  its  conclusions  can  be  utilized  to  enforce  the 
lesson  of  knowledge  or  ignorance  on  the  religious  question,  or  it  takes 
refuge  in  a  jargon  that  has  an  orthodox  ring  but  a  heterodox  meaning. 
What  it  needs  most  is  the  same  missionary  zeal  for  the  limitations  of 
knowledge  on  transcendental  things  as  the  religious  mind  has  for  its 
creed,  that  it  may  show  where  our  real  life  and  duties  are  to  be  occu- 
pied. But  the  consequence  of  its  latitudinarianism  and  subterfuges  is 
that  it  provokes  the  criticism  which  Kant  himself,  who  was  not  alto- 
gether remiss  on  this  point,  had  to  direct  against  it  in  his  own  time. 
His  remarks  are  found  at  the  close  of  the  Kritik  in  the  section  on  the 
"  Discipline  of  Pure  Reason"  which  should  be  studied  quite  as 
much  as  his  theory  of  space  and  of  judgment.  Speaking  there  of  the 
abuse  that  had  been  directed  against  Hume  and  Priestley  for  their  scep- 
ticism, he  makes  a  strong  plea  for  frank  and  courageous  speech  on  the 
fundamental  problems  of  philosophy  and  deprecates  the  disingenuous- 
ness  that  prevailed  in  the  treatment  of  those  problems,  having  been 
himself  nauseatingly  emphatic  in  proclaiming  the  truth  of  agnosticism. 
"  There  is  in  human  nature  a  certain  disingenuousness  which,  how- 
ever, like  everything  that  springs  from  nature,  must  contain  a  useful 
germ,  namely,  a  tendency  to  conceal  one's  own  true  sentiments,  and  to 
give  expression  to  adopted  opinions  which  are  supposed  to  be  good  and 
creditable.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  tendency  to  conceal  oneself 
and  to  assume  a  favorable  appearance  has  helped  toward  the  progress 
of  civilization,  nay,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  morality,  because  others, 
who  could  not  see  through  the  varnish  of  respectability,  honesty, 
and  correctness,  were  led  to  improve  themselves  by  seeing  every- 
where these  examples  of  goodness  which  they  believed  to  be  genuine. 
This  tendency,  however,  to  show  oneself  better  than  one  really  is, 


63S  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  to  utter  sentiments  which  one  does  not  really  share,  can  only 
serve  provisionally  to  rescue  men  from  a  rude  state,  and  to  teach 
them  to  assume  at  least  the  appearance  of  what  they  know  to  be  good. 
Afterwards,  when  genuine  principles  have  once  been  developed  and 
become  part  of  our  nature,  that  disingenuousness  must  be  gradually 
conquered,  because  it  will  otherwise  deprave  the  heart  and  not  allow 
the  good  seeds  of  honest  conviction  to  grow  up  among  the  tares  of  fair 
appearances. 

"I  am  sorry  to  observe  the  same  disingenuousness,  concealment, 
and  hypocrisy  even  in  the  utterance  of  speculative  thought,  though 
there  are  fewer  hindrances  in  uttering  our  convictions  openly  and  freely 
as  we  ought,  and  no  advantage  whatever  in  our  not  doing  so.  For 
what  can  be  more  mischievous  to  the  advancement  of  knowledge  than 
to  communicate  even  our  thoughts  in  a  falsified  form,  to  conceal  doubts 
which  we  feel  in  our  own  assertions,  and  to  impart  an  appearance  of 
conclusiveness  to  arguments  which  we  know  ourselves  to  be  inconclu- 
sive? So  long  as  those  tricks  arise  from  personal  vanity  only  (which  is 
commonly  the  case  with  speculative  arguments,  as  touching  no  particu- 
lar interests,  nor  capable  of  apodictic  certainty),  they  are  mostly  coun- 
teracted by  the  vanity  of  others,  with  the  full  approval  of  the  public  at 
large,  and  thus  the  result  is  generally  the  same  as  what  would  or  might 
have  been  obtained  sooner  by  means  of  pure  ingenuousness  and  hon- 
esty. But  where  the  public  has  once  persuaded  itself  that  certain 
subtle  speculators  aim  at  nothing  less  than  to  shake  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  common  welfare  of  the  people,  it  is  supposed  not  only 
prudent,  but  even  advisable  and  honorable,  to  come  to  the  succor  of 
what  is  called  the  good  cause,  by  sophistries,  rather  than  to  allow  our 
supposed  antagonists  the  satisfaction  of  having  lowered  our  tone  to  that 
of  a  purely  practical  conviction,  and  having  forced  us  to  confess  the 
absence  of  all  speculative  and  apodictic  certainty.  I  cannot  believe 
this,  nor  can  I  admit  that  the  intention  of  serving  a  good  cause  can 
ever  be  combined  with  trickery,  misrepresentation,  and  fraud.  That 
in  weighing  the  arguments  of  a  speculative  discussion  we  ought  to  be 
honest,  seems  the  least  that  can  be  demanded  ;  and  if  we  could  at  least 
depend  on  this  with  perfect  certainty,  the  conflict  of  speculative  reason 
with  regard  to  the  important  questions  of  God,  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  and  freedom,  would  long  ago  have  been  decided,  or  would 
soon  be  brought  to  a  conclusion.  Thus  it  often  happens  that  the  purity 
of  the  motives  and  sentiments  stands  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  goodness 
of  the  cause,  and  that  its  supposed  assailants  are  more  honest  and  more 
straightforward  than  its  defenders." 


CONCLUSION.  639 

This  is  a  strong  indictment  of  philosophers  from  one  who  has  not 
wholly  escaped  criticism  for  the  same  real  or  apparent  fault,  and  it 
seems  to  reproach  them  for  cowardice  and  hypocrisy.  But  I  am  far 
from  impugning  them  for  so  unfortunate  a  situation  which  exposes 
them  as  the  world's  teachers  to  this  accusation.  The  fact  is  that  they 
are  quite  ready  to  speak  their  minds,  if  they  were  conceded  the  free- 
dom they  need  and  deserve.  But  democratic  institutions  will  not  grant 
this,  and  whether  we  call  a  government  democratic  or  monarchic  the 
extent  of  the  suffrage  makes  all  our  western  civilizations  democratic 
in  character  and  influence.  A  democracy  insists  upon  reducing  every- 
thing to  the  level  of  the  lowest  class  that  can  hold  the  balance  of 
power.  We  usually  charge  socialism  with  this  tendency,  but  it  is 
probable  that  in  every  form  of  government  socialism  would  soon  develop 
into  an  aristocracy.  But  however  this  may  be,  democracy  exalts  the 
judgment  and  importance  of  the  unintelligent  classes  that  may  happen 
to  possess  the  balance  of  power.  The  demagogue  and  the  politician 
appeal  to  the  passions  of  the  populace  and  flatter  it  with  praise  for 
its  abilities  to  decide  social  questions  until,  with  its  acceptance  of  weak 
journalism  as  a  gospel,  it  comes  to  feel  that  it  is  equal  to  the  best  in 
the  determination  of  political  counsels.  The  same  spirit  is  fostered 
by  the  large  number  of  religious  denominations  with  their  insistence 
upon  the  right  of  private  judgment  without  tolerance  for  that  of  others. 
Our  educational  institutions  are  organized  on  the  basis  of  making  con- 
cessions to  this  tendency  and  the  result  is  that  any  attempt  to  teach 
disagreeable  truths  to  political  and  religious  masters  is  resented  and 
missionary  work  is  impossible,  unless  it  expresses  the  belief  of  those 
who  are  to  receive  the  teaching !  Philosophy  suffers  especially  from 
this  condition,  because  its  duties  bring  it  into  more  ready  conflict  with 
the  naive  religious  conceptions  of  the  masses,  who  prefer  to  lead  and 
govern  rather  than  be  instructed  and  guided.  Philosophy  has  either 
to  accommodate  itself  to  popular  opinion  or  to  occupy  itself  with  use- 
less or  curious  and  unintelligible  problems.  It  is  not  the  right  of  the 
public  to  demand  sincerity  and  missionary  fervor  when  it  will  not  con- 
cede the  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  which  are  so  necessary  a  con- 
dition or  test  of  them.  We  shall  not  have  any  independent  philoso- 
phizing until  men  can  criticise  popular  conceptions  as  freely  as  they  are 
permitted  to  adopt  or  flatter  them.  Those  who  are  willing  to  under- 
take the  correction  and  guidance  of  the  human  mind  must  be  allowed 
the  right  to  dissent  and  criticise  as  well  as  to  believe  or  to  be  adepts 
in  prudence  and  silence.  This  freedom  is  fully  enjoyed  by  the  non- 
academic  man,  who  has  no  calling  to  sustain  and  no  bread  to  win, 


640  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

when  he  undertakes  the  expression  of  opinion.  But  our  educational 
institutions  are  organized  to  pay  respect  to  public  opinion,  not  to  direct 
it  beyond  its  willingness  to  listen,  and  this  opinion  with  its  tyrannical 
love  of  power  must  not  expect  its  dependents  to  cultivate  any  other 
virtues  than  are  actually  permitted.  There  is  no  use  to  charge  hypoc- 
risy in  such  a  situation,  as  hypocrisy  is  not  a  vice  where  there  is  no 
freedom.  The  conduct  which  often  goes  by  that  name  is  a  perfectly 
legitimate  mode  of  defence  against  intolerance.  The  tendency  and 
right  to  accuse  the  teacher  of  this  are  the  inheritance  of  those  ages 
when  the  university  was  the  leader,  not  the  servant  of  the  masses,  and 
those  conditions  must  be  restored  if  that  vice  is  to  have  any  reproach. 
Moral  courage  and  sincerity  can  be  demanded  only  when  there  is  toler- 
ance for  difference  of  opinions  and  readiness  to  listen  to  knowledge 
when  it  comes  from  those  whose  function  it  is  to  know  and  impart  it. 
Dialectical  freedom  was  thought  by  Plato  to  be  necessary  to  prevent 
intellectual  pride,  but  he  required  that  the  pupil  should  be  young  and 
noble  and  fair  as  a  condition  of  becoming  sober  and  gentle  toward 
other  men  and  of  not  fancying  that  he  knows  what  he  does  not  know. 
The  want  of  nobility  of  character  made  impossible,  he  thought,  that 
insight  which  was  the  only  source  of  the  vision  sublime.  The  philoso- 
pher is  no  less  in  need  of  this  freedom  as  a  condition  of  both  his  sin- 
cerity and  usefulness.  If  it  is  not  granted  him  his  calling  must  degen- 
erate into  the  prudential  consideration  of  safe  and  curious  problems. 

Religion  must  accept,  or  at  least  share,  the  blame  for  this  situation- 
Its  obstinate  antagonism  to  the  "  natural "  has  only  succeeded  in  an- 
thropomorphizing the  conception  of  God  and  his  functional  relation  to 
the  world  and  in  divorcing  the  "  supernatural"  from  the  conception 
of  law  and  order  which  the  modern  mind,  infected  with  the  scientific 
spirit  or  with  the  view  of  "  nature"  which  that  spirit  has  created,  has- 
come  to  respect.  At  first  even  Greek  belief  was  divided  on  these  mat- 
ters. Its  fundamental  conception  of  the  gods  endowed  them  with  ca- 
price, but  in  the  course  of  development  they  were  either  relegated  to 
the  intermundia,  where  they  were  divested  of  interference  in  the  affairs- 
of  the  world,  or  were  subordinated  to  the  will  of  one  supreme  power 
who  was  subject  to  but  one  limiting  influence,  namely,  that  of  Fate. 
This  was  a  tacit  denial  that  personality  lay  at  the  basis  of  things. 
Religion  accepted  the  challenge  and  in  subordinating  cosmic  phenom- 
ena to  intelligence  neglected  to  fully  reconcile  it  with  law  and  made 
the  Divine  capricious,  as  reflected  in  its  theory  of  creation,  its  illustra- 
tions of  miracles,  and  in  its  doctrine  of  salvation  by  grace.  It  was  ar- 
bitrary intervention  in  the  order  of  things  that  led  the  Epicureans  to 


CONCLUSION.  641 

put  the  gods  out  of  court.  Man  cannot  endure  the  exercise  of  irre- 
sponsible and  incalculable  power.  He  must  rely  upon  constancy  in 
cosmic  events,  and  in  fact  can  himself  be  made  responsible  only  when 
his  ideals,  which  seem  so  imperative  for  his  development,  can  rely 
upon  that  constancy  for  their  realization.  Had  Christianity  identified 
the  Divine  more  closely  with  the  fixed  order  of  "  nature"  and  made  its 
will  less  capricious  than  it  did,  it  would  have  accomplished  all  that 
Epicureanism  effected  and  at  the  same  time  it  would  have  invoked 
for  that  order  the  spirit  of  reverence  that  had  characterized  the  Greek 
mind  for  "nature."  As  Fate  was  the  shadow  which  nature  cast  on 
the  Divine,  it  was  quite  natural,  in  the  reaction  against  that  inflexible 
order  which  had  troubled  man  in  his  vision  of  God  and  which  had 
shown  him  only  the  ugly  side  of  the  shield  of  Hercules,  that  he  should 
endow  personality  with  instability  of  character  and  thus  make  it  the 
heir  of  the  caprice  that  had  determined  the  nature  of  the  Greek  gods. 
But  fortunately  he  denuded  it  of  their  malice  and  inhuman  propensities, 
and  hence  the  attribute  of  benevolence  saved  it  from  ruin.  But  the 
progress  of  knowledge  and  of  scepticism  has  so  disturbed  man's  hopes 
for  the  future  that  he  can  see  no  benignities  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
and  the  discovery  reflects  its  somber  hues  again  on  the  conception  of 
the  Divine  and  throws  the  whole  responsibility  for  the  restoration  of 
those  ideals  and  hopes  upon  the  problem  of  a  future  life.  Our  con- 
ception of  the  Divine  must  be  affected  by  what  we  think  or  know  is 
the  actual  outcome  of  things,  a  situation  created  by  the  supremacy  of 
scientific  method  which  is  the  determination  of  truth  by  observation  of 
present  facts  and  not  the  mere  deduction  of  prospects  from  a  priori 
theories.  Hence  the  present  moment  must  be  found  to  reflect  the 
future  in  some  way  as  a  means  of  deciding  whether  its  course  is  as 
rational  as  it  is  inexorable,  and  the  first  step  in  this  is  the  conviction 
that  consciousness  is  as  permanent  as  the  mechanical  order. 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  Kant  he  faced  and  discussed  the  great 
problems  which  had  constituted  the  nature  of  philosophy  from  the  be- 
ginning of  its  reflections.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  a  scep- 
tical verdict  upon  them,  and  history  will  recognize  the  value  of  this 
result  when  it  comes  to  estimate  rightly  and  justly  the  service  of  scep- 
ticism to  civilization  in  diverting  man  away  from  transcendental  ideas 
which  had  induced  him  to  neglect  his  proper  social  and  practical 
duties.  Kant's  defect  was  that  he  did  not  see  clearly  enough  his  way 
to  show  how  missionary  enthusiasm,  that  is,  all  the  moral  fervor  of  the 
old  religious  ideal,  could  be  applied  to  the  natural  life  when  the 
"  other  worldliness  "  of  transcendentalism  had  been  discredited.     In  t 


642  THE  PROBLEMS    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  attempt  to  correct  the  impersonal  view  of  things  in  Greek  thought, 
which  had  reacted  against  mythology,  Christianity  had  rushed  off 
again  into  the  opposite  extreme,  adopting  a  personal  conception  of  the 
cosmic  order  and  concentrating  a  passionate  attention  upon  an  exist- 
ence beyond  the  present  life  that  wholly  underestimated  the  nature  and 
importance  of  man's  duties  and  relations  to  his  present  environment. 
Kant's  philosophy  called  him  back  from  this  transcendental  debauch 
into  the  world  of  reality  where  the  drama  of  actual  life  has  to  be 
played  and  where  ethics  have  all  their  beauty  and  imperativeness  in 
aims  and  ends  that  may  have  a  relation  to  the  hereafter  but  that 
may  be  nevertheless  as  valid,  though  they  may  not  be  as  efficient, 
"without  this  hope.  Kant  stated  these  duties  in  a  severe  formula 
and  with  a  tendency  to  admit  that  the  rewards  of  virtue  could 
only  be  found  in  another  world.  But  the  development  of  ethical  re- 
flections leads  us  more  and  more  toward  the  view  that  ideals  need  not 
lack  attainment  in  the  present  order,  if  only  we  have  the  insight  and 
courage  to  see  and  realize  them  within  the  limits  of  the  conditions  to 
which  we  are  immediately  responsible.  Philosophy  has  a  mission  to 
inculcate  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal  in  the  real  world  and  in  the  interest 
of  this  aim  it  need  not  counsel  stoicism  for  the  present  life  and  tacitly 
or  explicitly  concede  the  right  of  inspiration  to  the  transcendental, 
though  further  scientific  investigations  may  reveal  a  prospect  for  the 
future  that  may  stimulate  moral  endeavor  as  much  as  it  can  color  life 
with  religious  fervor  and  passion. 


A  BELARD,  522 

Absolute,  The,  546-553 
Absolute  and  Relative,  4,  8 
Acquisition,  238,  239 
vEschylus,  385 
./Etiological,  26,  39,  40 
^Etiological  argument,  546-560 
/Etiological   interpretation  of   nature, 

35o 
^Etiology  and  Teleology,  353-357 
Analytic  judgments,  157 
Anaxagoras,   363,   365,    375,   376,   380, 

383 
Anselm,  522 
Anthropology,  28 
Antisthenes,  7 

Apperception,  77,  103,  131,  143-146 
Apprehension,  77,  78,  98-106,  ill,  193- 

197 
Aquinas,  183 
Aristotle,  8,  178,  180,  183,  184,  188,  231, 

265,  266,  363,  365,  370,  371,  374. 

380,  383,  526,  534 

"DACON,  231 

Becoming,  8 
Being,  5,  8,  12 

Being  and  Knowing,  6,  12,  91 
Belief,  9,  10,  11,  61 
Berkeley,  12,  13,  41,  53,  74,  173.   175. 

265-271,    275,   277,   310,  313,    316, 

319,  340,  342,  583 
Binocular  vision,  312,  318,  321,  331 
Biology,  27,  31 
Brewster,  246,  310 
Busse,  337 

TAIRD,  491 

Carlyle,  522 
Categories,  112,  113,  121 
Causality,  Category  of,  120,  121 
Casuality,  Material,  323,  342,  371 
Cause,  18,  19,  46-48,  51-55-  37* 
Certitude,  59,  61,  63,  126,  127 


Change,  5,  216 

Christianity,  9-12,  16,  60,  68,  181,  336, 

406,  407,  40S,    584,  585,  599,  621, 

626,  627 
Classification,  288 
Classification  of  the  sciences,  22,  24, 

27 
Cleanthes,  585 
Cognition,  107,  III,  129,  130 
Cognitiotiis,  Ordo,  154 
Cognoscendi,   Ratio,   19,  20,  122,    125, 

166,  245,  252 
Collier,  74 

Communication  of  knowledge,  157, 158 
Comte,  22,  24,  26,  35 
Concepts,  Singular  and  General,  108, 

109 
Concrete  concepts,  108,  109 
Condillac,  340 

Conperception,  77,  103,  139-143,  202 
Composition  of  elements,  348,  349 
Consciousness,  79 
Consciousness,  Immediate,  192 
Conservation  of  energy,  390-397,  468, 

486 
Copernicus,  243,  377 
Corpuscular  theory  of  perception,  264 
Correlation  of  forces,  393 
Cosmological,  49<-56 
Cosmological  problem,  531-537 
Criteria  of  truth,  17S-257 
Crookes,  Sir  William,  376 

T\ ALTON,  408 

Dante,  600,  610 
Darwin,  243 

Davy,  Sir  Humphrey,  249 
Deductive  reasoning,  233 
Definition,  184,  217,  284 
Democritus,  361,  362,  363,  366,  375,  376 
Deontology,  27,  29 
Descartes,   2,   11,   13,  60,  62,  72,   116, 

193,   195,   285,  391,  392,  397,  398, 

399,  400,  522,  523,  558 


643 


644 


Dickinson,  621 

Dimension,  the  third,  267-271,  310 

Dinge  an  sick,  37,  298-303 

Diversity,  126,  127 

Doubt,  61.     See  Scepticism. 

Dreams,  206 

Dualism,  10,  357 

J7LEATICS,  8,  361 

Empedocles,  8,  264,  266,  363 
Empiricism,  70,  71 
Epicurus  and  Epicureanism,  7,  8,  9,  16, 

74,  361,  362,  363,  366,  368,  369,  370, 

373-  375.  381,  503,  548,  55o,  583 
Epistemology,  28,  44,  58-167,  182,   183 
Epistemological  realism,  277,  279,  293- 

295.  300 
Ergological,  25 
Erkenntniss,  58,  59 
Essence,  5 
Essendi,  Ratio,  19,  20,  122,   166,  240, 

245.  252 
Ethology,  27,  29 
Events,  104,  105 

Evolution  of  space  perception,  319 
Existence  of  God,  35,   513-574,   599~ 

607 
Experiment,  238 
Experience,  7,  14,  69 
Explanation,  18,  20,  21,  238,  239,  358 
Explanatory  and  evidential  problems, 

358 
Extension,  109,  187 
Extensive  judgments,  123,  129,  218 

pATTH,  10,  11,  61,  68,  628-633 

Fichte,  74,  345 
Fiendi  Ratio,  19,  20,  122,  240,  245,  252 
Fischer,  Kuno,  523 
Franklin,  242 
Free  will,  478-481 

QALILEO,  243 

Gassendi,  391 
General  concepts,    Singular  and,  108, 

109 
Generalization,  148,  210 
Genesis  of  space  perception,  259-263 
God,  Conception  of,  524,  527,  531 
God,  Existence  of,  35,  513-574,  599-607 


Greek  thought,  2,  8,  9,  12,  16,  19,  60,  64, 
365,  371.  406,  508,  513-516,  543. 
584,  595.  599.  621,  626,  627 

Green,  T.  H.,  74,  81 

Grove,  393 

HALLUCINATIONS,  206 

Hamilton,  87,  183,  188,  550 
Hawksbee,  249 
Hegel,  74,  345,  404,  587,  636 
Heraclitus,  5,  7,  8,  363 
Herbart,  495 
Hobbes,  391 
Hobhouse,  59 
Holland,  30 
Homer,  609 
'How   do   we   know?'    1,   64,  65,    71, 

73 
Huyghens,  391 
Hume,  12,  13,  115,   116,  120,  175,  340, 

637 
Huxley,  564,  612 
Hylology,  28,  34,  334 
Hyperesthesia,  488,  489 
Hypothesis,  238,  241 

TDEAL  and  real,  4 

Idealism,  4,  5,   12,   14,  15,  16,  72, 
168,  169,  170,  171,  174,  176,  280, 
335,  336,  337,   339.    347.    356, 
378,     379,     502-506,     578-583, 
585 
Identity,  Principle  of,  127 
Ideological,  26 
Inductive  reasoning,  233 
Illusions,  206,  264 
Immediate  consciousness,  192 
Indestructibility    of    matter,   386-390. 

486 
Individuality,  457 
Inertia,  379-384,  533 
Inference,  190 
Infero-apprehension,  151 
Injluxus  physicus,  53,  66,  323,  342,  452, 

502 
Insight,  67 
Intellectualism,  347 
Intension,  109 

Intensive  judgments,  123,  125,  219 
Intuition,  14,  107,  108 


TEVONS,  249 
^     Judgment,  107,  ill 
Judgments,  Mathematical,  213,  215,  227 
Judgments,  Substantive,  213,  227 
Jurisprudence,  30 

IT" ANT,  2,  12,  13,  14,  26,  34,  37,  43.  44, 
45.  52,  58,  59.  60.  69.  74,  77.  105, 
111,    112,  113,  115,  116,  117,  118, 

I20,     121,    126,    152,    I57,    l8l,  242, 

260-264,      27I-309,     318-330,  337, 

340-346,    366,    483,    490,    49I,  492, 

494-502,    514-524,    525,     526,  528, 

537,  544,  55o,  560,  561,  582,  583, 

587,   594-597,    630-632,  635,    636, 

637,  641,  642 
Kepler,  242,  243 
Kingsley,  Charles,  612 
Knowledge,   14,  59,  62,  63,  68,  69,  70, 

80,  91,  115,  116,  149 
Knowledge  and  Reality,  3,  6,  7,  8,  12 
Knowledge,  presentative,  136,  142,  156 
Knowledge,  The  limits  of,  43 
Knowledge,  Theories  of,  and  Reality, 

70,  72 
Kuno  Fischer,  523 

I  APLACE,  377 

Law,  18,  20,  21,  25 

Lecky,  Mr.,  515 

Le  Conte,  321 

Leibnitz,  153,  286,  287,  294,  300,  301, 
324,  329,  342,  344,  376,  383,  398, 
399,  490,  492,  499,  500,  525,  558 

Liebmann,  337 

Life,  31 

Localization,  312,  322 

Localization  of  brain  functions,  481 

Locke,  12,  13,  77,  583 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  376,  507 

Logic,  21,  29,  30,  113,  179-192,  231 

Logical  classification,  23,  28 

Lotze,  5,  25,  50,  529 

Lucretius,  340,  343,  361,  362,  369 

MAGNITUDE  and  sensation,  325 
Malebranche,  299  '- 

Materialism,  12,  17,'  73,  76,  335,  336, 
337,'  339,  345,  347,  348,  349,  351- 
354,  361-408,  471-475,  478,  482- 
487,  502-506,  588-590 


INDEX.  645 

Mathematical  judgments,  213,  215,  227 

Memory,  97,  156 

Mechanical  theory,  367,  370,  390-393 

Mendelssohn,  337,  496,  497,  499,  500 

Mentation,  93 

Metaphysics,  26,  34,  37,  40 

Method  of  Agreement,  241,  482 

Method  of  Concomitant  Variations,  246 

Method  of  Difference,  246,  482 

Method  of  Residues,  246 

Method,  Scientific,  20,  23,  246-257 

Metrology,  34,  35,  334 

Mill,  29,  185,  231,  232,  233,  236,  247 

Milton,  610 

Mind,  79 

Morley,  John,  623,  634 

Monism,  357 


jyATUR^,  Ordo,  154 

Nature,  18 
Necessity,  126,  127,  214 
Neo-Platonism,  7,  9 
Newton,  242,  243,  245,  377 
Nominalism,  26 
Nomological,  25 
Noumenological,  26,  46-49,  57 
Noumenon,  4,  37,  38,  44 
Nova  Dilucidatio,  302,  324 

OBJECTIVE  and  subjective,  3,  6,  8, 

U     278 

Objectivity,  8,  278-333 

Observation,  238 

Occasional  cause,  342,  351 

Ontological,  26,  39,  40 

Ontological  realism,  277,  279,  290-295 

Ordo  cognitionis,  154,  212,  252,  346 

Ordo  nature,  154,  212,  294 

Organon,  180 

Orthological,  26,  34 

pAN-MATERIALISM,  72 

Pan-spiritualism,  72 
Pantheism,  605-607 
Parallax,  Binocular,  312,  318 
Parallelism,  398-404,  463"47° 
Perception,    14,     103,    117,    132,    176, 

202 
Perception  of  solid  objects,  313,  327 
Permanent  and  transient,  5,  82 


Phenomena,    4,   10,    14,  80,   204,   277, 

340-345 
Phenomenalism,  42 
Philosophic  movements,  2 
Philosophy,  633-642 
Physicus,  injluxus,  53,  56,  287,  323,  342, 

452,  502 
Plane  dimension,  314 
Plato,  2,  4,  5,  6,  8,  9,  10,  60,  61,  74,  81, 

82,  105,  180,  265,  340,  341,  365,  371, 

373.  383.  385.  498,  503.  539.  541, 

583.  609 
Pluralism,  357 
Plurality,  126,  127,  457 
Pneumatology,  28,  35,  36 
Politics,  27 
Possibility,  126,  129 
Positivism,  34,  42 
Prattology,  27,  29 

Presentative  knowledge,  136,  142,  156 
Priestley,  637 

Principle  of  Coincidence,  247 
Principle  of  Identity,  127 
Principle  of  Isolation,  247,  248 
Probability.  126,  127 
Proof,  67,  190,  200 
Property,  284,  286,  291 
Propositions,  no 
Psychology,  21,    28 
Purkinje,  316 
Pyrrho,  7 
Pyrrhonism,  178 

QUALITATIVE  CHANGE,  465 
Quality,  113,  114 
Quantity,  113,  114 

RATIO  AGENDI,  19,  20,  122 

Ratio  cognoscendi,  19,  20,  122,  166, 
240,  252 
Ratio  essendi,  19,  20,  122,  166,  240,  252 
Ratio  ficndi,  19,  20,   122,   240,   245,  252 
Ratiocination,  146-148,  186 
Realism,  5,  14,  15,  72,  73,  168,  170,  171, 

174,   176,  207,  280,  335,  336,  347, 

356,  378-583 
Realism,     epistemological,    277,     279, 

293-295.  300 
Realism,  hypothetical,  170 
Realism,  ontological,  277,  279,  290-295 


Reality,  3,  4,  6,  7,  12,  80,  81,  82,  127, 

132,  135 
Reason,  2,  7,  10,  II,  628-633 
Reasoning,  179,  183-192 
Reason,  Law  of  Sufficient,  122 
Reid,  Thomas,  183 
Relation,  113,  119,  126 
Religion  and  Science,  607-628,  640 
Representative  knowledge,  156 

CCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY,  18, 

21,  44,  230 
Scepticism,  2,  3,  37,  59,  70,  71,  89,  91, 

586,  587,  609 
Schelling,  74,  345 
Schopenhauer,  22 
Scientific  Method,  179,  230,  237,  238, 

246 
Sensation,  2,  78,  85-93,  io2>  280 
Sensationalism,  347 
Serial  classification,  22,  28 
Sigwart,  236 
Similarity,  126,  127 
Singular  terms,  108 
Sleep,  473,  478,  485 
Sociology,  29 

Solipsism,  73,  170,  172,  174,  280,  319 
Sophists,  3,  4,  5,  364,  385,  503 
Soul,  79 

Soul,  Epicurean  theory  of,  368 
Space,  104,  126,  127,  258-333 
Space    perception,    Genesis    of,    259- 

263 
Space  perception,  Nature  of,  259-263 
Space  and  Time,  35 
Spencer,  Herbert,  12,  22,  23,  24,  635 
Spinoza,   12,   285,  300,   301,   329,   361, 

399,  408,  525,  605,  606 
Spiritualism,  12,  17,  76,  168,  336,  337, 

347.   349.  354-356.   409-512,    588- 

590 
Sterling,  405 
Stoics,  7,  8,  365 
Subjective,  8,  278,  502 
Substance,  5,  35 

Substantive  judgments,  213,  227 
Sully,  337 
Superphysical,  8 
Supersensible,  8,  10 
Sweden borg,  490 


'■TERTULLIAN,  467 

Thales,  362 
Time,  104,  126,  127 
Teleological,  26,  34 
Teleological  argument,  560-570 
Teleological  interpretation  of  nature, 

350 
Teleology  and  ^Etiology,  353~357 
Transcendental  world,  14 

T  TLPIAN,  30 
U      Unity,  26,  127 
Unseen  Universe,  466 
Upright  vision,  316,  320 


V 


647 

AIHINGER,  272,  341 
Verification,  238,  244 
Vital  force,  31 
Vortex-atom  theory,  506 

1  WHAT  do  we  know  ? '  64,  65,  71,  157 

'  What  is  a  thing  ? '  161 
Wheatstone,  310,  312 
Whewell,  236 

Wirhlichkeit,  297-298 

Wissensckaft,  58,  59 
'World  of  facts,'  etc.,  25 
Wundt,  236 

VENO,  519 


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